LAURA JONES

It was despair, hope and love for the environment that brought together this artist, the writer Tim Winton, and Australia's most prestigious art prize

- ALEXANDRA ENGLISH

If you ever miss the phone call to let you know you’ve won Australia’s oldest portrait prize, don’t stress: they call you back. That’s what happened to Laura Jones earlier this year when Dr Michael Brand, the director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, called to tell her she’d won the Archibald Prize. “My partner passed me the phone and I don’t know what happened, my fingers just didn’t work and I missed the call,” she says, laughing. She knew the winners were being announced that day. “I tried to call back but got the gallery’s switchboard, so I just had to wait,” she says. “It was the longest 10 minutes of my life.”

She never expected to win, but Jones’ portrait of the beloved Australian author Tim Winton made her just the 12th woman to win the prize in its 103-year history. The Archibald is given for the best portrait of a “distinguished” individual, but it wasn’t only for his storytelling powers that Jones asked Winton to sit for her.