The biennial Percival Portrait Award is North Queensland’s own portrait competition, promoting Townsville’s identity, and held at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery.

Townsville's galleries pride themselves on being firmly embedded in the Townsville community and since 2007 the Award has been an open competition for artists. While showcasing the outstanding and innovative work currently being produced by Australian artists, the competition has also given many emerging artists and residents from Townsville and around Australia, an opportunity to engage with portraiture and share their expressions of themselves and those close to them.

Thanks to the generosity of Xstrata and other sponsors, the Award has steadily grown in stature and prize monies over the years, from $3,000 in 2007 to $40,000 in 2012. The 2012 edition, featuring almost 200 works, attracted artists from all states and territories of Australia and one from Russia.

Across the years participating artists have presented varied styles and approaches to the contemporary portrait - from abstracted images and cool conceptualism to smooth realism and the energetic aura of thick, impasto oils executed with broad brush and palette knife.

The next Percival Portrait Award will be held in 2014. Check our website frequently for our next call for artists and details on how you can be involved.

For more history of the exhibition, click the links below to download fact sheets for each of the previous Percival Portrait Awards:

 2007 Percival Portrait Award
 2008 Xstrata Percival Portrait Award
 2010 Xstrata Percival Portrait Award
 2012 Xstrata Percival Portrait Award