The Art Gallery of New South Wales was pleased to announce that Brisbane artist Julie Fragar has won the Archibald Prize 2025 and $100,000 for her portrait of fellow Brisbane artist and colleague Justene Williams, titled Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), which depicts Williams as an ‘active master of a multiverse of characters and events’.
A four-time Archibald Prize finalist, Fragar broke into tears when Art Gallery of New South Wales director Maud Page phoned this morning to deliver the news that her work had been selected as the winner from 57 finalist works.
Responding to the win, Fragar said: ‘You work your whole career imagining this might happen one day. Thinking back to myself as a 17 year old showing up at the Sydney College of the Arts – a kid from country New South Wales – it’s incredible to think I have won the Archibald Prize. Portrait painting wasn’t taken as seriously in the 1990s as it is today. I have always regarded the Archibald Prize as a place that understood the value of portraiture.
‘To be the winner of the Archibald Prize is a point of validation. It means so much to have the respect of my colleagues at the Art Gallery. It doesn’t get better than that.’
Speaking of her sitter, she said: ‘Justene is incredible. I feel very fortunate that she allowed me to do this portrait. There is nobody like her. The work is a reflection on the experience of making art to deadlines, and the labour and love of being a mother.’
‘Flagship Mother’ in the title comes from Justene’s recent endurance performance in New Zealand titled Making do rhymes with poo, which was about the labour of ‘getting by’. Fragar and Williams work together at the Queensland College of Art and Design, where Fragar is the head of painting and Williams is the head of sculpture.
This is the 15th time the Archibald Prize has been awarded to a woman, and Fragar is the 13th woman to win since its inception in 1921.
Speaking of the winning work, Art Gallery director Maud Page said: ‘Here are two of Australia’s great artists in conversation about what matters most to them. Julie Fragar has a sumptuous ability to transcend reality and depict her subjects technically but also psychologically. Justene Williams is a larger-than-life character, a performer – cacophonous and joyous. In this work, she is surrounded by her own artworks and, most important of all, her daughter Honore as a tiny figure atop a sculpture. It speaks to me as a powerful rendition of the juggle some of us perform as mothers and professionals.’
The Archibald Prize and the Wynne Prize winners are decided by the Art Gallery’s Board of Trustees. Board president Michael Rose congratulated all the finalists in the 2025 Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes and commended the high standard of work this year.
‘Julie Fragar’s work is a portrait for our time. It’s a highly accomplished formal painting that is also incredibly contemporary. The work is vibrant, outward-facing and optimistic, and we were captivated by its energy,’ said Rose.
The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman finalists exhibition opens at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Saturday 10th May 2025.
