25th Dobell Drawing Prize
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25th Dobell Drawing Prize
Friday July 2
2027
The Dobell Drawing Prize is Australia’s leading prize for drawing, and an unparalleled celebration of technique, innovation and expanded practice. Presented at the National Art School in partnership with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, this biennial exhibition continues to highlight the enduring relevance and changing role of drawing within contemporary art practice. The winning work enters the National Art School’s significant collection, built over the past 120 years.
This 25th edition will be curated by Lucy Latella and showcases the work of the finalists, selected from nationwide entries by judging panel Joan Ross, Paula Latos-Valier AM and Dr Lorraine Kypiotis.
Entries are now open until 5pm Monday 14 September 2026.
Enter nowImage: Rosemary Lee, 24 – 1 (detail), 2024, pencil on paper, image courtesy the artist and Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney © the artist
Joan Ross’ cross-disciplinary practice and philosophical mission as a Scottish Australian artist, is born from a desire to understand Australia’s protected shady layers of colonial histories. Fluoro and furious, Ross reimagines colonial imagery, imbuing each work with a slew of cultural references that reflect eras unwittingly lived by us all, critiquing the complex and ongoing issues surrounding the effects of greed, globalisation and colonisation.
Ross has exhibited widely across Australia and abroad. She recently presented a major career survey at the National Portrait Gallery, Joan Ross: Those trees came back to me in my dreams, whereby Ross was invited to select portraits from the collection and situate them alongside her own artworks – furthering the evolution of Ross’ long withstanding practice and concepts around ‘collecting’ and ‘collections.’
Ross’ works are held in major public collections across Australia and in national and international private collections. She has been a finalist is numerous awards, winning the Sulman Prize, Valerie Taylor Art Prize, and Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize among others, and has undertaken significant commissions for Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, and Australian Centre for Moving Image. Adjacent to her artistic practice, Ross is an educator and mentor, and is an alum and Fellow of the National Art School.
Lorraine Kypiotis is passionate about art, education and history. She holds a PhD from the University of Sydney with a strong focus on the function of artefacts within art academies and institutions and a Masters degree in Italian Renaissance Studies. Her research interests also include Women in Art, Museology and 19th century Australian Art History. She is an experienced educator who has taught in both the secondary and tertiary sectors and has been lecturing in the Department of Art History and Theory at the National Art School since 1997.
High on her list of priorities is regional and national engagement with the high school sector. As the former Education Outreach Coordinator at the National Art School, she ran the Dobell Drawing School for Year 11 students and inaugurated the Dobell Regional Teacher Workshops – a program which has engaged thousands of NSW teachers since 2011.
Lorraine is a frequent and popular guest lecturer at the AGNSW and is the regular art historian on ABC Radio National’s Nightlife program. She also leads cultural tours to Italy, Spain and Portugal. Lorraine is currently working on the documentary, Seeking Vagarini as well as a book on 19th and 20th century Italian Artists in Sydney.
Paula Latos-Valier AM is a US-born curator and visual arts administrator whose career in senior visual arts roles spans over four decades in Australia. She is currently Art Director and Trustee for the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation and Chair of the S.H. Ervin Gallery Advisory Committee. In 2024, she retired from nine years of service as Vice President of the Art Gallery of New South Wales membership organisation, Art Gallery Society of New South Wales (AGS).
Latos-Valier was instrumental in the management and delivery of the Biennale of Sydney from 1981 – 89, and became General Manager in 1997 and Managing Director in 2004 until 2007. Her former positions also include Director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, coordinator of the inaugural Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1990, and International Exhibition Manager for the Australian Gallery Director’s Council. She has been a board member of the Australian American Fulbright Commission, Alliance Française de Sydney and Visual Arts/Craft of the Australia Council.
She was awarded a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2005 and an Honorary AM in 2018 for her service to the arts and academic exchange.
About the Dobell Drawing Prize
William Dobell’s love of drawing was recognised in 1993 when the Art Gallery of New South Wales established an annual drawing prize in his name, initiated by the trustees of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation. For twenty years, the annual Dobell Prize for Drawing encouraged excellence in drawing and draughtsmanship among Australian artists. Past winners include Kevin Connor, David Fairbairn, Virginia Grayson, Nicholas Harding, Ann Pollak, Gareth Sansom, Jan Senbergs, Garry Shead, Aida Tomescu, and Justine Varga.
Building on the legacy of this respected award, the National Art School partnered with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation in 2019 to produce the inaugural Dobell Drawing Prize at NAS. This new iteration of the $30,000 acquisitive Prize celebrates technical skill, innovation and expanded definitions of drawing.
The National Art School provides a context for the Dobell Drawing Prize to thrive in. The exhibition has previously been shown as part of the NAS Festival of Drawing, a biennial event organised by the School’s National Centre for Drawing. The festival includes talks, workshops and a research symposium. The Prize also compliments the School’s esteemed academic drawing program: drawing is a core component of all studies at NAS and is taught throughout each degree.
Dobell Prize for Drawing at the Art Gallery of NSW
Visit the AGNSW website for the full archive of the Dobell Prize for Drawing (1993 – 2012).
Although a reserved and unassuming man, William Dobell’s two years teaching at the National Art School had a profound effect on his students. Many describe his love for drawing, and his outstanding draughtsmanship was apparent when he demonstrated drawing in his classes at NAS.
Sir William Dobell was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, on 24 September 1899. He moved to Sydney in 1924 to study at the Julian Ashton Art School, where he met many artists who would later teach at the National Art School. In 1929 he won the Society of Artists Travelling Scholarship and lived in London for ten years, painting and studying at the Slade School of Fine Art. When his scholarship ran out after three years, he supported himself by producing posters and illustrations for magazines, acting as an extra in films, and working with fellow Australian artists decorating the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow in 1937.
On his return to Sydney in 1939 his friend Douglas Dundas offered him a part time teaching position at East Sydney Technical College (now the National Art School). He taught drawing from nature, costume drawing and became highly respected as the ‘life master’, teaching life drawing in the studios on the top floor of building 16. He taught at NAS until 1941, when he left to work as a camouflage artist during WW2. After the war, Dobell occasionally filled in as a lecturer at NAS, teaching the students studying there under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme.
In 1943 Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia’s principal award for portraiture, for a painting of fellow artist and former NAS student Joshua Smith. The award was immediately challenged on the grounds that Dobell’s entry showed a degree of distortion, which made it a caricature rather than a true portrait, but the court upheld the judging panel’s decision. Resultant newspaper publicity greatly expanded interest in Dobell’s work, but as a result of the controversy Dobell withdrew to Wangi Wangi, a small coastal town north of Sydney, where he set up a studio. He won the Archibald Prize twice more, in 1948 with a portrait of former NAS student Margaret Olley, and in 1959 with a portrait of Dr Edward McMahon. Dobell continued to draw all his life, filling sketchbooks and recording the life and people of Wangi Wangi. He was knighted in 1966 and died on May 14, 1970.
The Sir William Dobell Art Foundation was formed in 1971 from the artist’s bequest with instructions that ‘a Foundation be established for the benefit and promotion of art in NSW.’ The Foundation has sponsored a wide variety of projects since then, including exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, scholarships and major public art commissions. The SWDAF first joined forces with NAS in 1998 to present the Dobell Drawing School – an annual, week-long workshop for year 11 students. Now in its twentieth year, this educational partnership has expanded to include the Dobell Regional Teachers’ Workshop, which gives rural teachers the opportunity to work with a practising NAS artist.
The new Dobell Drawing Prize runs in alternative years to the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, affirming the SWDAF’s commitment to continuing the development of drawing as a medium in its own right, and a fundamental element of the visual arts.
Art Director of the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation Paula Latos-Valier states:
‘The Dobell Drawing Prize has many great attributes – it is very democratic in that any artist can enter and there are no restrictions to subject matter or medium. This freedom from curatorial constraint is a distinguishing feature. The Prize has always championed the idea of peer group assessment by inviting respected practicing artists to select the finalists and determine the prize-winner. Lastly, being an acquisitive prize means that the winning work goes into a public collection and leaves a tangible legacy for future generations. The Foundation is excited that this will continue in this new partnership with NAS.’