Semi-finalists for Moran Arts Foundation Portrait and Photography Prizes announced

The Moran Arts Foundation have announced their semi-finalists for their Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize and Doug Moran National Portrait Prize for 2015.

For the last 27 years, the Moran Arts Foundation ask the very best artists in portraiture and photography to submit their finest works for some of the Foundations most prestigious competitions. These artworks are judged and a winner is deemed from a pool of 30 artworks per Prize.

Semi-finalist Jill Talbot’s portrait for the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize 2015

The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize was first founded in 1988 by Doug and Greta Moran and the family. Their vision for the prize was to invite the best artists in Australia to create a portrait that embodies the look and personality of a chosen ‘sitter’. The subject of the portrait does not have to be well-known, just interesting. The top 30 portraits chosen will be exhibited at Juniper Hall in Paddington.

This years judges are Angus Trumble and Rick Amor. Angus is the director of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and a celebrated author and Rick is a distinguished artist with extensive solo exhibition experience.

The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize is known as being the richest portrait art prize in the world, with the winner receiving $150,000 prize money. All finalists will also receive $1,000 and a chance to exhibit at Juniper Hall.

Alongside this prestigious prize is the announcement of the semi-finalists for the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize. This competition is a relatively new prize, having been founded only in 2007.

This national competition was designed to showcase the expertise of photographers and give them a chance to put forward their interpretation of ‘contemporary life in Australia’.

Semi-finalist photograph for Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize

The artist was tasked in emphasising the daily life of your average Australian, showing the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful and the uniqueness of Australia.

We are known as being an incredibly multicultural country, so the photographers were encouraged to show off the diversity of our society.

The first prize winner will receive a cash prize of $50,000, with cash prizes ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 also being offered to artists in High School from Years 7-12.

The judges this year for the Photographic prize are Alan Davies and Cheryl Newman. Alan is a photographic historian and was the 1st curator of the State Library of NSW from 1989 to 2014. Cheryl is a writer and photography consultant living in London who also served as the Photography Director of the Daily Telegraph newspaper for 15 years.

Both these events are important parts of the Australian arts calendar and incredibly important for the Moran Arts Foundation.

The finalists will be announced on Tuesday the 13th of October.

The winners of each prize will be announced on Wednesday the 28th of October at Juniper Hall Paddington. The hall will then be opened to the public on Thursday the 29th of October for the 2015 Moran Prizes Exhibition.

For a list of the semi-finalists for both prizes, please check out the Moran Arts Foundation website here.