Bondi-inspired Zavros portrait wins Archibald people's choice
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Michael Zavros won the $5,000 Archibald people's choice prize for his portrait of Alex Ryvchin, co-head of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, with 45,769 votes cast — the highest number ever recorded in the category
- The painting was created after Zavros met Ryvchin at a Sydney eastern beaches in early January, just weeks after the Bondi terror attack, and was officially titled 'Alex with his tefillin in the sea'
- Ryvchin said the tefillin in the portrait 'binds me to someone who was very dear to me, someone who I lost at Bondi,' adding that he and the victim would put on tefillin together before the attack
- Zavros said he was drawn to paint Ryvchin because of an 'uncanny likeness' between them — his mother once mistook Ryvchin for him on TV — and recently discovered he has Ashkenazi Jewish heritage via a DNA test, alongside his Greek and Irish ancestry
- Richard Lewer won the $100,000 main Archibald prize for his portrait of artist Iluwanti Ken, while Sean Layh took the $3,000 packing room prize for his portrait of actor Jacob Collins
- Gaypalani Waṉambi won the $50,000 Wynne prize for 'The Waṉambi tree' and Lucy Culliton won the $40,000 Sulman prize for 'Toolah,' a painting of one of her seven greyhounds, with a record 2,524 entries received across all three prizes
- The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2026 exhibition runs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until 16 August, before Archibald finalists tour Victoria and regional New South Wales
Why it matters: The record 45,769 public votes signal unusually high engagement with a work that memorializes the Bondi attack through tefillin symbolism chosen by the subject himself, Ryvchin, who lost someone at Bondi. Zavros's parallel discovery of Ashkenazi heritage gives the win personal weight beyond the prize's $5,000 purse, embedding Australia's most prestigious portrait prize directly in the national response to the attack.
