Mosman Art Prize 2026: Winner Announced
Melbourne artist Georgia Spain takes home the prestigious $70,000 Mosman Art Prize for 2026.
Melbourne multidisciplinary artist Georgia Spain has won the $70,000 acquisitive 2026 Mosman Art Prize for her striking painting, The different ways to ward off words (After NS) 2026. Spain describes her painting as follows:
“The different ways to ward off words (After NS) explores bodily transformation, feminism, mythology, and the multiplicity of the self. I made this painting with the lineage of feminist mother artists close by. Here, poking out one’s tongue symbolises something larger: a defiant stance against the expectation that you can’t do or be it all. The work explores the tension between these demands and the possibility of making space for many selves at once.”
Working across painting, drawing, ceramics, music, writing and film, Spain’s practice moves between figuration and abstraction. Her work uses narrative and storytelling to explore cultural, political and personal themes, with recurring interests in spectacle, theatricality, ritual and ceremony.
The 2026 Mosman Art Prize attracted a diverse field of contemporary Australian painters, with several other awards recognising outstanding work.
The Margaret Olley Commendation Award went to Matthew Harris for Brightest of All Time, while Hayley Megan French received the Allan Gamble Award for Patterns for a Home (Some Thoughts I Couldn’t Put Down). Tara McIntosh won the Guy Warren Emerging Artist Award for Home, and Miranda Hampson received the inaugural Installers’ Choice Award for INTERSTICE. The Viewers’ Choice Award will be announced during the final week of the exhibition.
Now in its 79th year, the Mosman Art Prize is Australia’s longest-running municipal art award. Established in 1947, it has become an important platform for contemporary Australian painting, showcasing artists whose work reflects changing ideas, identities and experiences.
Spain’s winning painting will enter the Mosman Art Collection alongside works by some of Australia’s most celebrated artists, including Margaret Olley, the Prize’s inaugural winner, Grace Cossington Smith, Cressida Campbell, Lloyd Rees, Guy Warren, Elisabeth Cummings and Michael Zavros.
This year’s judge was Blair French, CEO of Murray Art Museum Albury. The 2026 Mosman Art Prize exhibition was on display at Mosman Art Gallery until 26 October.
For more information, visit: mosmanartgallery.org.au
