Image: Castlemaine Art Museum
Castlemaine Art Museum (CAM) in central Victoria has announced the finalists for the 2026 Len Fox Painting Award. The judges, Dr Rebecca Coates and Dr Angela Hesson, have selected 41 works by 42 artists, one entry being a collaboration between Alec Baker and Eric Barney. The finalists will be exhibited at the museum from 11 December 2026 to 14 March 2027.
Held every two years, the award is open to living Australian artists and is acquisitive: the winning painting enters CAM’s collection. It honours the painter Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865–1915) and is funded through a bequest from Mona Fox. According to the museum, the prize looks for work that connects with concerns central to E. Phillips Fox’s own practice, among them colour and light, artistic exchange across borders, and travel and encounters with other cultures. Entrants may work in any style, genre or medium, and the museum describes the award as a way of honouring the history of its collection while supporting painters working across the country today.
Coates has been director of Monash University Museum of Art since 2023; Hesson is a writer, curator and lecturer.
The other finalists are Kirsty Budge, Ella Dunn, Belinda Fox, Jemi Gale, Bryella Garmanjan Farrell, Camille Hannah, Ash Keating, Anthea Kemp, Natalie Mather, Sally Ross, Sarah Tomasetti, Kate Tucker, Stefan Wirihana Mau, Rhett D’Costa, Mark Dober, Peter Graham, Euan Heng, Fumikazu Kubota, Kerry Madawyn McCarthy, Grant Nimmo, Stieg Persson, Steven Rendall, Kate Shaw and Michael Vale, alongside Adrian Corke, Jeff McNeill, Elizabeth Nelson, Deborah Walker, Ben Fennessy, Marion Harper, Amanda Johnson, Donna Lougher, Kate McKenzie Lewis, David McBurney, Angela Mezzatesta, David Ralph, Kathryn Ryan, Andrew Taylor, Ross Taylor and Helen S Tiernan.
The winner will be named at the official opening on the evening of Friday 11 December. Visitors can also vote for a People’s Choice award, which the museum will announce when the exhibition closes.
