The Archibald Prize is one of the most prestigious events in Australia’s art world, but as Amy Yang reports, it wouldn’t be the Archibald if there wasn’t a bit of controversy.

A little bigger than a sheet of A3 paper, the 2010 Archibald winner. Image: Art Gallery of NSW

Archibald winner Sam Leach was floating in the clouds last month after winning the 2010 Archibald Prize for Portraiture with his tiny painting of Tim Minchin.

Now, he’s had to return to earth and face plagiarism allegations that his other painting that took out the Wynne Prize, closely resembles Adam Pynacker’s 17th century landscape, Boatmen moored on the Shore of a Lake (1668).

“[The Archibald] is Australia’s most controversial art prize. Each year there seems to be something that somebody doesn’t like,” says Susanne Briggs, Media Officer for the Art Gallery of NSW.

In 2009, Guy Maestri won the Archibald Prize with a black and white portrait of the Indigenous singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.

Ms Briggs says that one journalist compared Mr Maestri’s painting with a CD cover which looked very similar. However, the painter openly acknowledged the resemblance claiming the he had finished the artwork before he became aware of the album cover.

“[It] didn’t really get the mileage that Sam Leach has got. But the same sort of thing, no different,” Ms Briggs says.

“I think what’s happened with Sam Leach, if my information is correct, emails have gone through the art community which eventually found their way to the media, probably deliberately, so many more media were contacted.”

Ms Briggs says that there will be a meeting with the judges of the Wynne Prize and the trustees of the Art Gallery to discuss the matter further next week.

However, the definition of plagiarsim in visual arts is no different to plagiarism in the academic world.

“If I was to copy a piece [with] one element out of it [so that it] was changed then I would also refer back to that artist,” says Nafisa Naomi, winner of this year’s Archibald Packer Prize and founder of Australian Portrait Artists Association.

Ms Naomi says that even if the subject of a painting was different, yet it clearly looked like a copy of another artist’s work, than the new painting should in some way cite the original.

She says that as a practising artist, 2010 Archibald finalist, art educator and administrator, her role is to help Australian artistic talent.

“We want the history of the portraiture to go on, we want the Wynne prize to go on. We don’t want there to be a situation where there is so much controversy and there is so much of a put down in the judging and the process that artists stop entering and the Art Gallery stops supporting.”

“We need prizes like the Archibald put in by the major galleries in Australia in order to give artists an opportunity to have their work shown,” Ms Naomi says.

Ms Naomi refused to comment about the current plagiarism allegations against Sam Leach.

So, what makes the Archibald so controversial?

According to Ms Briggs, Craig Ruddy’s 2004 Archibald winning portrait was one of the more memorable moments in the history of the Archibald prize.

Mr Ruddy was sued by a fellow artist who believed his entry, David Gulpilil, two worlds was more of a drawing rather than a painting. The matter was later dismissed by the Supreme Court Judge who believed that questions over the quality of art should be left to the gallery’s trustees.

In another incident, director of the NSW Art Gallery, Edmund Capon was taken to court after a journalist heard him insulting one of the paintings.

Mr Capon was fined $100 for calling Vladas Meskenas’ portrait of Rene Rivkin, “a pile of chewing gum.”

Edmund Capon was unavailable for an interview

The Archibald Prize turns 90 next year and according to Mr Capon, who curates the gallery, the style and subjects of the paintings have changed over the years.

At the gallery’s portraiture forum, “Archibald Image and Identity”, Mr Capon said that when the Archibald Prize was first born in 1921, “the subjects were all well dressed, imminent citizens, poe faced and very important.”

Jump to 2006, and Adam Cullen portrayed Mr Capon looking like a blood-thirsty zombie. The painting which Mr Capon says, is one of his favourites.

Greg Somers' deadpan self portrait with a Dory Gray. Image: Gallery of NSW

Greg Somers, one of the 2010 finalists, says that his second entry into the Archibald was a personal one.

“You have to do something extra like a whimsical title. Self Portrait with picture of dory in gray is about being happy at the age you are rather than wanting to be eternally youthful which is part of our culture, wanting to stay young. Its a personal portrait painted with an eye for the Archibald.”

Mr Somers says in traditional portraiture, sitters don’t smile, but in his case, his deadpan face is reference to an incident in Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray where the husband and wife exchange outrageous stories whilst keeping a straight face.

Unlike European and American portraitures, Ms Naomi says it is normal that Australian portraitures tend to have a certain unusualness to them.

“The Americas tend to be far more traditional and that is a reflection of their community. The American population is very conservative minded in a number of ways, particularly on family and abortion. There’s a lot of very traditional tightly held ideas on that and the same thing runs into their projection of themselves which is what portraiture is about,” Ms Naomi says.

“[American portraitists] don’t lean towards portraiture like how we do. Australians have a sense of humour, our portraiture tends to reflect that sense of humour.”

So what makes a good portrait or more importantly a good Archibald portrait?

“What I have noticed is that they do tend to lean towards hanging something which has an edginess about it,” Ms Naomi says.

“It is creating a portrait which draws you across the room towards it. There is character in the subject not just superficial likeness.”

For Greg Somers, getting that “edge”, is all about capturing the person’s personality.

“If you know the sitter, it’s easier to get character than a commissioned work.”

According to Ms Naomi, the Archibald is the oldest portrait prize in the world, however she says that Australian attitudes to art and the competition are different to those overseas.

“In Europe and the Americas there is a certain amount of respect which goes with being an artist as you would a lawyer, as you would a teacher, as you would a doctor,” Ms Naomi says.

“In Australia we don’t have that and I think that’s why there has been that ‘anyone can be an artist’ attitude which does not necessarily support artists who are very serious in their fields.”

“We’re a very young country, and it’s almost like anything goes here.”

Even so, for an upcoming artist who has just won the Archibald Prize, the attention the prize brings to their work is enormous.

“Their career can just go off,” Ms Briggs says.

“We go through a process with them, particularly the younger artists who then know what’s ahead of them. It’s really three to four hours of non-stop interview which is very tiring. In a controversy like the one with Sam Leach, my colleague and I have been ringing Sam Leach to make sure he’s ok. I mean after all he is a human being.”