Lewis Miller Portrait of Stephen Feneley

Lewis Miller decided to paint journalist Stephen Feneley, a former presenter with the ABC-TV program The Arts Show, on the steps of the Art Gallery of NSW at the opening of last year’s Archibald Prize. ‘Stephen was there and he’s been a good supporter,’ says Miller. ‘He was also there when I did the first sitting for the portrait of Allan [Mitelman, which won the Archibald Prize in 1998]. I’ve tended to pick my mates as subjects and not gone too far afield.

‘Stephen is someone who knows about pictures and so I thought he would know how to sit. I did a small portrait of him in 1999.’ After trying several different poses, Miller decided to paint Feneley standing up. ‘I always try to simplify the picture as much as possible. Stephen is a tough, physical person and this is a strong pose so graphically it seemed a good idea. He was wearing grey clothes which suited me fine as I like to do plain pictures.’

Born in Melbourne in 1959, Miller studied at the Victorian College of the Arts. This is his tenth time as an Archibald finalist; he also won the Art Gallery of NSW’s Sporting Portrait Prize, held in conjunction with the Archibald in 2000, with a portrait of Australian rules football player and coach Ron Barassi.