Archibald Prize 1981
Entries: 205 (24 selected)
Sponsor: Katies
Exhibition dates: 19 December 1981 to 30 January 1982
Only selected works were exhibited; each artist could submit up to two works
A sponsor came on board for the first time and the prize money was raised from $3500 to $10,000.
After Eric Smith was awarded the Archibald for his painting of Rudy Komon, John Bloomfield (who’d been stripped of the 1975 prize after his work was ruled ineligible) took legal action. The issue was whether Smith’s portrait had been painted from life as there were similarities between the work and an old photograph of Komon. The case was eventually dismissed in 1983. The Gallery bought Smith’s painting with funds provided by Komon.
- Su Baker - Noel Counihan
- David Campbell - Fay Bottrell
- William Dargie - Johannes Bjelke Petersen
- Mario Duarte - Reg Livermore
- Brian Dunlop - Anna Waldmann
- Sam Fullbrook - Pat Murray
- Sali Herman - The artist's wife
- Frank Hinder - Renee Free - senior curator - and family
- Frank Hodgkinson - Dr Colin Jack-Hinton, historian, director of Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory
- Frank Hodgkinson - Nippa Kapirigi, artist, traditional owner of Deaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory
- Ted Markstein - Barwick
- Jocelyn Maughan - Frank Hinder - artist
- Margaret Mezaks - His Eminence Archbishop Stylianos
- Brian Perrett - Graham Jones - Kinetic Energy Dance Co
- Lesley Pockley - The Hon WC Wentworth
- Geoffrey Proud - Dorothy Hewett
- John Thomas Rigby - Mrs P Hassouras
- Andrew Sibley - Alan McCulloch
- Eric John Smith - Rudy Komon (Winner: Archibald Prize 1981)
- Nigel Thomson - Max Miller
- Dora Toovey - Fred Frizell - artist
- Margaret Woodward - Protean, self-portrait
- Salvatore Zofrea - Stephanie Claire
- Reinis Zusters - Self-portrait in Sofala