At a dinner party in 1985, the Australian artist Guy Warren, who has died aged 103, was asked by a fellow guest whether he had ever entered his work for the Archibald prize, Australia’s premier portrait award. “Oh God no,” he replied. “Nobody goes in for that. The trustees wouldn’t know a good painting if it fell on them.”
His friend and host, the sculptor Bert Flugelman (“He may have had one more glass of red than me,” Warren recalled in an interview for the University of Wollongong Library in 2017) issued a challenge. The two men would paint each other and enter the results for the Archibald. Warren’s picture, called Flugelman With Wingman, won. “For once the judges made an incredibly perceptive and intelligent decision,” Warren deadpanned. “Good for them.” With the prize money, Warren could finally afford to paint full time, at the age of 64.
