Visiting Professor wins Archibald

John Beard, visiting professor at UNSW's College of Fine Arts (COFA), has won the 2007 Archibald Prize.

COFA graduate Joe Frost also has picked up the $15,000 Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing for a piece entitled The Back of the City. He shares the prize with fellow artist John Fitzgibbon.

The coveted Archibald, worth $35,000, went to Beard for his monochrome portrait of fellow artist Janet Laurence.

The Archibald, announced at the Art Gallery of NSW, is awarded annually to the painting or "mixed media" artwork judged to be the best Australasian portrait of a man or woman, preferentially distinguished in art, letters, science or politics.

Beard has been represented in group and solo shows at galleries including the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery in Canberra, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, and in London at the Tate, Whitechapel Gallery, Royal Academy, Science Museum and National Portrait Gallery. Most recently Beard held a solo exhibition at The Gulbenkian's Centro De Art Moderna in Lisbon.

Beard said his prize-winning work captured a fleeting moment of Laurence, an installation artist who herself entered the Archibald more than 20 years ago.

Frost, who graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in 2002, said his work represented his local environment - the city, harbour and suburbs of Sydney.

The Archibald, Wynne & Sulman Prizes are on show at Art Gallery of New South Wales from 3 March - 13 May 2007. http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au