The ultimate goal of The Lester Prize is to contribute to a culturally rich, more connected society.

To help achieve this we offer a platform for portrait artists of all levels to create and showcase their work, as well as a forum for celebrating young creatives.

Our core activities include:

• A high quality, high profile national annual prize and exhibition that showcases artists at all stages of their career and puts artists and community front and centre.

• Community engagement, education and youth programming including: an annual, national Lester Prize Youth Awards; guided tours for schools and community groups; and creative workshops and community art pop-ups.

• Regional touring and in-person and online workshops to regional galleries and schools.

The Lester Prize, formerly The Black Swan Prize for Portraiture, is now in its 17th year.

Portraiture is a popular art form and until The Black Swan Prize, there was nothing available in the westerly side of Australia when it came to portrait prizes.

Over time we have developed a strong reputation for quality and now attract over 800 entries yearly.

From humble beginnings at the Perth Town Hall, The Lester Prize is now shown at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

In addition to the annual main awards at AGWA, our national Youth Awards have become a stand-alone national art prize showing at the WA Museum Boola Bardip.

We run a strong, well-attended community engagement program alongside each exhibition, including workshops, artist talks and tours.

We also partner with organisations such as Starlight, Propel Youth Arts, Community Arts Network and local city councils in Western Australia to offer creative support within communities.

We started touring the regions in 2020 and are pleased with the popularity and attendance numbers our exhibitions bring to regional galleries.

We pride ourselves on connecting audiences to the accessible and endlessly fascinating art form of portraiture.

We are proud of the increase in the profile of The Lester Prize over the last four years.

We now receive over 800 submissions to the Prize each year and continue to experience success in touring our annual exhibitions to the regions.

The Lester Prize receives no government funding, instead relying on our strong reputation to attract and retain private supporters, both corporate and individual.

We are refining our regional and outer community strategy at the moment and hope to implement this before the end of the year.

The prize itself is an annual event, with this year’s exhibition opening at AGWA in September.

In 2024, The Lester Prize will tour to Collie, and the Youth Awards will take place at WAM once again in April 2024

Coolaroo has previously provided untied operational funding.

This is an absolute godsend and over the past 6 years, it has enabled us to get to the position we are in now.

We have been able to lift our reputation to the extent that it is an anticipated event in the art ecology calendar and amongst a broad audience.

The Lester Prize has always had a strong community engagement element and delivers yearly workshops to Starlight Children’s Foundation, Community Arts Network, and BIPOC youth via Propel Youth Arts.

In addition, we now tour the exhibition to the regions each year and work with regional galleries to offer valuable workshops with our finalists or alumni artists.

The Coolaroo Foundation has enabled us to reach our strategic goals, particularly those related to our expansion into the regions.

We would like to build on the great momentum that we have.

There is palpable energy around the Lester Prize as we engage and connect with regional and outer city communities.

The communities we work with love the offerings from The Lester Prize and are keen for their members to take advantage of the workshops and access to visual art that we offer.

Effectively utilising our limited resources to gain traction and build on these programs is our current focus and challenge.