Nora Heysen became the first woman to win Australia's prestigious Archibald Prize for portraiture, with her portrait of Elink Bull.
In 1938, Nora Heysen made history as the first woman ever to win the Archibald Prize, Australia's most prestigious portraiture award, administered by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She won for her portrait of fellow artist Madame Elink Schuurman (referred to in some sources by her married name).
The award was announced in January 1938, and the win was met with a mixture of celebration and open sexism from parts of the Australian art establishment and press, some of whom openly questioned whether a woman could or should win such an award, and made disparaging remarks about her looks and marital prospects rather than her artistic skill. Remarkably, no other woman would win the Archibald Prize again until Judy Cassab in 1960, over two decades later — underscoring how exceptional and hard-won Heysen's achievement was.
This victory established Heysen as a serious portraitist in her own right, independent of her father's towering reputation as a landscape painter. It also served as an early, highly public demonstration that women could compete with, and defeat, male peers in a major national art competition. The win remains a landmark moment referenced whenever the history of gender and recognition in Australian art is discussed.