Artist’s special Archibald tribute
DURING the past 21 years, artist Jenny Sages has been nominated as a finalist in the Archibald Prize – the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia – on 19 occasions.
However, this year’s nomination has the greatest significance to her.
Her entry, My Jack, is a portrait of her husband Jack who died in October last year. The couple had been married 55 years.
“In all the years that I have done art, I had never painted a portrait of him,” said Sages, 77, who works from her studio in Double Bay, Sydney.
“My daughter, Tania, and I thought that we should do it, and it was completed in July last year and Jack liked it.”
She was hesitant about entering the portrait into the Archibald Prize, but was convinced by others it would serve as a memorial to Jack.
“I feel enormously sad and I’m scared to go and see it on the walls,” she confessed.
My Jack is one of 41 finalists from 798 entries in the Archibald Prize, which carries a first prize of $50,000. The winner will be announced on Friday April 15 at noon by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
For her paintings Sages uses a background of encaustic (a wax medium that was first used in the 14th century by Egyptians), which she then layers with wax, pigment and oil.
“This painting was done faster than most portraits because I knew him so well and he was sitting on the veranda and I could sneak out and look at him,” she explained.
Sages was born in Shanghai, China, and immigrated to Australia in 1948. Jack was born in Turkey and lived in Israel before coming to Australia.
“I met him after travelling to the Middle East after being at art school in New York. He was very handsome.”
The finalists in the Archibald are on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from April 16 – June 26 and at Eva and Marc Besen’s TarraWarra Museum of Art in Victoria’s Yarra Valley from July 1-31.
REPORT: Danny Gocs
PHOTO: Jenny Sages’ My Jack, which is a finalist in the Archibald Prize.
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