Each year artists of all styles and standards are invited to submit comic or satirical portraits of a distinguished Australian that embrace humour, parody and caricature.
The result has been three decades of celebrating the lighter side of art and the larrikin Australian spirit.
In honour of the 30 year milestone, a ‘best of’ exhibition is now touring the county, and has landed in Deniliquin until June 28.
Launching the retrospective exhibition on Friday night in Deniliquin was Museum of the Riverina manager Luke Grealy, who has taken charge of the exhibition since founder Peter Batey OAM’s death in 2019.
With a background in theatre and comedy entertainment, Mr Batey’s greatest irritation was that regional Australians are often forced to accept second rate cultural experiences.
Mr Grealy explained that this lead to Mr Batey creating the Coolac Festival of Fun — a month long celebration of art, food and fun, at which the notorious Bald Archy Prize first got its start.
“This grew to be one of the leading events on the Australian art calendar, achieving an international profile, touring to both regional and capital city venues,” Mr Grealy said.
“The Bald Archy portrait awards presents irreverent, provocative and highly accessible caricatures of Australians who had been newsworthy during that year.
“Often the winner of these awards would generate international headlines and provoked anger from subjects or their supporters.
“In a master stroke, Batey nominated his pet cockatoo Maude as judge of the award. His reasoning was the Maude had as much appreciation of art as the 11 galahs on the judging panel of the Archibald prize.
“Every time the Bald Archy Prize was on display we achieved record crowds - some delighted, some perturbed.
“One hand scrawled note left in a donation box simply said ‘in very poor taste’. As long as he was getting a reaction - good or bad - Batey was happy.”
The Best Of The Bald Archy exhibition is being shown at the Deniliquin Peppin Heritage Centre Museum. An entry fee of $3 applies.
The centre is open Monday to Saturday from 9am to 4pm and Sundays from 9am to 2pm.
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