Michael Zavros has won the People’s Choice Award for the 2026 Archibald Prize for a portrait of author and Jewish advocate Alex Ryvchin.
Accepting the award, worth $5,000, Zavros said the acknowledgement of visitors to the Archibald Prize was “genuinely humbling”.
“I’m deeply grateful that this portrait has connected with so many people.”
In his artist statement, Zavros said he had seen Ryvchin — the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry — in the media a lot after October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel.
“He spoke passionately about the pain in his community and the changes he feared would emerge in our nation,” Zavros wrote.
The artist, who recently uncovered his own Jewish heritage, then saw Ryvchin in the media again after December’s Bondi attack.
“I found common ground with this man who, like me, is a father of three,” Zavros wrote in his artist statement. (Supplied: AGNSW/Jenni Carter)
In his acceptance speech, Zavros said “Alex again showed the kind of leadership that many Australians were searching for” in the wake of the attack.
“Overwhelmingly, I don’t believe Australians are racist. I don’t believe we are homophobic and I don’t believe we are anti-Semitic. Those things have no place in the country we aspire to be,” Zavros said.
Zavros also spoke about the common ground he shared with Ryvchin, being the child of migrants from Cyprus in the 50s, while Ryvchin was four when he and his family migrated to Australia from Ukraine as refugees in the 80s.
“What unites us is so much more powerful that was divides us, though it’s easier to focus on the latter,” he said.
“I’m immensely proud of this work that Alex and I have made together.”
A portrait of outspoken advocate Ryvchin winning the Archibald People’s Choice comes as the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion continues this week.
Zavros took out the audience-voted prize after a record 45,769 visitors voted.
Zavros’s win follows Richard Lewer winning the $100,000 Archibald Prize in May, for his portrait of Pitjantjatjara elder, artist and ngangkari (traditional healer) Iluwanti Ken. In April, Sean Layh won the Packing Room Prize, for his portrait of actor Jacob Collins in character as Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Richard Lewer wins Archibald Prize
Zavros is one of 59 finalists in this year’s Archibald, alongside portraits of Bondi hero Ahmed Al Ahmed, Governor-General Sam Mostyn and former ABC journalist Virginia Trioli.
Past winners of the People’s Choice Award,first awarded in 1988, include Loribelle Spirovski for her finger-painted portrait of musician William Barton (2026), Angus McDonald for his portrait of academic Marcia Langton (2024), and Jaq Grantford for her portrait of actor Noni Hazlehurst (2023).
The importance of symbols
Zavros’s hyper-realist oil painting of Ryvchin, which stretches to more than 2 metres tall, was staged at a secluded Sydney bay suggested by Ryvchin.
In his artist statement, Zavros explained he always knew he wanted to paint Ryvchin in “water, or ‘the sea'”.
“[It] symbolises so much for Jewish and non-Jewish Australians alike,” he wrote.
He also decided to include his tefillin — small black leather boxes with leather straps that contain scrolls inscribed with verses from the Torah.
“Symbols are so important in contemporary culture. All too often, when marking identity, they are used to harm people.”
He added in his speech symbols like the tefillin “express faith, history and belonging, yet too often they are used to divide and to harm”.
Presenting the award to Zavros, AGNSW director Maud Page said she had noticed how visitors would “pause in front of this beautiful poignant work”.
“There’s no doubt that Alex Ryvchin’s incredibly sad eyes and stance alone on the shoreline has propelled people to think a little bit more about their own mortality and beliefs.”
She also praised Zavros’s “immaculate brushstrokes”.
“He works with assuredness, able to not only render a subject in his total likeness, but also position him within an evocative narrative setting, where the very ripples of water on the sand convey as much as the twist of Alex’s body,” she said.
“The painting, for me, is a picture of 2026.”
The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2026 exhibition runs until August 16 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.