Lewis Miller Ronald Dale Barassi

This portrait by Lewis Miller of football icon Ron Barassi won the Daily Telegraph Sporting Portrait Prize, held in conjunction with the Archibald Prize 2000. The work is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.

Barassi is a legend of Australian Rules football, ‘one of the true champions, visionaries and gentlemen of our game’, as fellow AFL coach Mick Malthouse once described him. Barassi has been involved with 17 grand finals during his illustrious five-decade career as a player and coach. Many believe his efforts helped legitimise the game in Sydney.

Barassi is the father of Miller’s mate Richard. Miller himself barracked for Collingwood but says that he very nearly threw his allegiance in with Melbourne just because of Barassi. ‘Even people who don’t know anything about football know who he is,’ he says.

Born in Melbourne in 1959, Miller studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, later undertaking post-graduate studies there. He has been hung in eight Archibald Prize exhibitions – including in 2000 with a self-portrait – and won the prize in 1998 with a portrait of artist Allan Mitelman.