Meet the winners of the 2024 Young Archie competition

Australia’s oldest and most prestigious portrait award has a little brother, Archie. Now in its 12th year, the Young Archie competition runs alongside the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman awards at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW).

This year, over 4,000 works of art were submitted by young artists aged five to 18. It was the largest group of entries to date, and only 70 finalists were chosen to be hung in the exhibition.

On Saturday 27 July, two judges – Grace Lillian Lee, artist at Meriam Mer, and Victoria Collings, AGNSW Family Programs Manager – selected four winners from the portraits on display.

The winner in the five to eight year old category was six-year-old Ella Lee Fowler from Melbourne for her portrait of her best friend Avelyn under the sea. In her artist statement, Fowler said she chose her subject “because she is so kind”.

In the nine to 12 year old category, 10-year-old Hollie Au from Northmead in NSW won for her portrait of her art teacher who is “really nice and teaches really well”.

Fourteen-year-old Leon Do, the son of artist Anh Do, won the 13- to 15-year-old category for Xavier on a Tuesdaya portrait of his older brother. Do said: “Sometimes Xavier is up, sometimes he is down; on this day he was in the middle of it. In my painting I tried to capture the slightly melancholic mood of my brother. I chose to paint my brother because he is always there for me, no matter what.”

Leah Blatchford, 18, won in the 16- to 18-year-olds category for her portrait of her mother, who teaches art to children.

The adult winners of Archibald – artist Laura Jones, who won the 2024 Archibald for her portrait of Tim Winton, and Matt Adnate, who won the Packing Room prize for his portrait of Baker Boy – won $100,000 and $3,000 respectively. Meanwhile, the four winners of Young Archie will each receive a $200 cash prize, an art basket, some gallery tickets and a free catalogue.

The young Archibald can be seen until September 8, 2024. All artworks of the 70 finalists are available online.