Every year thousands of Sydneysiders visit the Art Gallery of NSW to view the entrants in the Archibald Prize for Portraiture.
Across Australia thousands more go to see the travelling exhibition. Sydney's fountain in Hyde Park is named after him.
He was the founding editor of one of our nation's most iconic newspapers, The Bulletin. Yet very little is known about J.F. Archibald. Born and educated in the Victorian goldfields, he arrived in Sydney in his early twenties with little more than a dream. As editor of The Bulletin newspaper, he nurtured the careers of Australian writers and artists from Miles Franklin and Banjo Paterson to Norman Lindsay and Florence Rodway.
Yet, the man behind the prize lived a life that was not without tragedy and mystery.
“…a wonderful and professional job as author and biographer to the great Australian man we all know of, but little about…” ~ James, Indiebook Reviewer
