Marie Mansfield Wins Australian Portrait Award

Ten-time finalist New Zealand-born artist Marie Mansfield has won Australia’s premier prize for female portraitists, the $30,000 Portia Geach Memorial Award, Helen Pitt reports for The Sydney Morning Herald.

Mansfield won for Tilly, a painting of fellow Sydney artist Matilda Michell (shown here cropped).

“It’s unbelievable and I was absolutely thrilled after being 10 times a finalist … It is a really strong field of competing artists and I feel very fortunate to have won,” Mansfield said. “I think we are sick of being cooped up for so long in lockdown, so I would strongly recommend people get out and see all the paintings, they are superb.”

Mansfield has also been a finalist multiple times in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize and the 2016 Archibald Prize, with a portrait of fellow Christchurch artist Euan Macleod.

The show will continue at the National Trust’s Observatory Hill gallery until 19 December.

Original article by Helen Pitt, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 3, 2021.