Archibald Prize 2021: Peter Wegner wins with portrait of Guy Warren

Peter Wegner has won the 2021 edition — and $100,000 — for his portrait of fellow artist Guy Warren.

Guy Warren poses in front of Peter Wegner’s Archibald-winning portrait of him. Picture: David Swift

With 100 years of lived experience behind him, most of them spent working as an artist, Guy Warren could see that Peter Wegner’s portrait of him was a “bloody good painting”.

Wegner’s portrait of Warren was named winner of the Archibald Prize on Friday, with the neat coincidence of the $100,000 prize being given for a portrait of a centenarian, in the Archibald’s centenary year.

Artist and sitter had met only twice, when Wegner travelled up from Melbourne to Warren’s home in Sydney to do some portrait drawings.

On Friday, because of the Melbourne lockdown, Wegner was unable to be at the Art Gallery of NSW to collect the prize, and it was left to Warren to speak on the portrait’s behalf.

MORE:See all 52 Archibald Prize finalists here

“It’s a bloody good painting, he’s a good professional painter,” he said.

“It’s in the full tradition of good portrait painting, and that tradition goes back a hell of a long way. Second, it’s a good likeness. And thirdly, I’m told, it says something about my character. That I shouldn’t be the judge of – I don’t know.”

Wegner, 67, has been working for several years on drawings of centenarians, a project that began with his Aunt Rita who lived to 104. He first approached Warren for his centenarian series, and then decided to enter a portrait for the Archibald.

“He is one of the most remarkable 100-year-olds I have met,” said Wegner, who has drawn about 90 centenarians. “We got on so well, I think because we’re both artists. We could talk all day.”

Warren, who turned 100 in April, put his art studies on hold when he served in New Guinea during WWII. He went on to have a long career as an artist and art teacher and, briefly, as an art critic for The Australian in the 1970s.

Archibald Prize 2021 finalists

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In 1985, he won the Archibald with his portrait of sculptor Bert Flugelman, and was pleased when a critic noted that it was more than a portrait of a friend – it was a portrait of friendship.

“I thought that was a nice thing to say,” Warren said. “Now, I would like to think the same about this (painting by Wegner), but I really don’t know Peter and he doesn’t know me. But if he’s captured something like that, without me even knowing him, then it’s an even better painting than I thought it could possibly be.”

AGNSW Trust president David Gonski announced the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes. The Wynne, for landscape, was won by Nyapanyapa Yunupingu for her painting Garak – night sky. Georgia Spain won the Sulman for her painting Getting down or falling up.

The prize exhibitions open at the AGNSW on Saturday, plus a special show, Archie 100, about the Archibald Prize centenary.