Castlemaine Art Museum’s prestigious Len Fox Painting Award was celebrated on Friday evening.
The Len Fox Painting Award is a biennial acquisitive painting prize and is awarded to a living Australian artist to commemorate the life and work of Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865–1915), the uncle of Len Fox, partner of benefactor Mona Fox. The award and generous acquisitive cash prize of $50,000 is funded through a bequest from Mona Fox.
Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards announced the winner and formally switched on CAM’s new lighting system supported by a grant from the state government.
The 2024 Len Fox winner is South Australian First Nations artist Nellie Ngampa Coulthard for her work Tjuntala Ngurangka – Country with Wattle (Acacia Murrayana).
Elder Nellie Ngampa Coulthard paints Yankunytjatjara Country near Oodnadatta in South Australia – a desert landscape blooming with wattle remembered from her childhood.
CAM director Naomi Cass thanked the judges, Emma Busowsky and John Wolseley, and extended CAM’s congratulations to the finalists and all those who entered the award for 2024.
Judge Emma Busowsky said Nellie Ngampa Coulthard’s work wss a celebration of the beauty of nature and the artist’s abiding connection to her ancestral lands.
“It is an exuberant, joyful evocation of Yankunytjatjara Country, especially the brilliant yellow blossoms of the acacia wattle tree that abound there,” Busowsky said.
“Coulthard’s distinctive palette, command of her chosen medium of synthetic polymer paint, and unique vision have come together in a painting of dazzling beauty and intensity that captures the shimmering light, colour, atmosphere and abundance of the landscape.
“It is these qualities that link the work to the legacy of Emanuel Phillips Fox. Though Coulthard’s cultural and artistic lineage is of course much older, Coulthard is a respected elder from the artistically vibrant APY Lands in South Australia, and a practising artist for over three decades.
“Tjuntala Ngurangka – Country with Wattle is both a worthy winner of the award and addition to a public collection, particularly one with strong holdings of colonial and 19th century Australian painting.”
The public is invited to visit the Len Fox Painting Award exhibition at CAM until March 2, 2025. Visitors are also encouraged to vote for their favourite work in the People’s Choice Award. Cast your vote at form.jotform.com/242688643888882
Group L-R Naomi Cass, Helen Symon KC, Maree Edwards MP, and judges John Worsley and Emma Busowsky, in front of winning entry (to right of centre): Tjuntala Ngurangka – Country with Wattle (Acacia Murrayana) by South Australian First Nations artist Nellie Ngampa Coulthard. Coulthard paints Yankunytjatjara Country near Oodnadatta in South Australia, a desert landscape blooming with wattle remembered from her childhood. 
Artist Carla Tucker’s daughter Lexi Tucker who posed for her mother’s painting, one of the entries in the Len Fox Award. Photo: James McArdle.
