Oroton x The Art Gallery of New South Wales

“Look at her coral lips, her peach cheeks and her eyes which are grey, all those colours together are just divine, so clever,” says Creative Director, Sophie Holt, who recently spent an afternoon touring the Archie 100: A Century Of The Archibald Prize in Sydney and came away buzzing from the artists’ palettes.

The exhibition marks the beginning of OROTON’s new long-term partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, an alliance that weaves together two iconic Australian narratives with a focus on heritage, conservation and philanthropy.

The exhibition also marks a significant milestone for the Gallery, a celebration of the Prize’s rich history and illuminating works, revealing secret stories that came to light through years of research into lost portraits – immersing in the series couldn’t be more captivating for the house’s Creative Director.

“[To] launch this partnership in line with Archie 100: A Century of the Archibald Prize is very exciting,” Holt says. “I always take great inspiration from art, mostly built around colour and the balance of proportion in a palette, then also there’s texture, brushstrokes, or perhaps the simplicity and straightforwardness of an artist’s work and how their colours interplay.”

Holt is videoing in from her design studio, reflecting on her favourite portraits, almost micro-studying the palettes and imagining them into moodboards: one of her favourites, the woman with grey eyes, Miss Sybil Craig, painted by Violet McInnes in 1941, provides a kind of graphic counter point to her notes. Holt says “There’s a formality to the fashion of the time and how women dressed, you can see that here, and yet her black and white dress is so graphic, there’s a modernity to the way the artist has captured it and I love that.”

Archie 100 Curator, Natalie Wilson, explains the exhibition’s historical impact: “Each portrait selected for Archie 100: A Century of the Archibald Prize offers an exciting glimpse into a specific moment in time. Together, these works uncover changes in society in engaging ways, enabling people to experience how artistic styles and approaches to portraiture have changed over time.”

With all that in mind, the Creative Director is equally drawn to Mary Cecil Allen’s, Portrait of Hilda Elliott, painted in 1925. “I adore this painting for its colour balance and the way the artist worked light and shade back with neutrals. It’s along the lines of where our April colour palette was going – we had incorporated soft sage greens, greys and taupes, but then having seen this painting it suddenly felt right to include a hit of blue and yellow, it added something so beautiful and unexpected to the mix.”

Also on Holt’s favourites list: Tempe Manning’s Self-portrait, painted in 1939 – “It’s colour saturation is just incredible, you almost fall into the painting when you see it up close” – along with Elisabeth Cummings’s work, the wonderfully moody painting, Jean Appleton, which won the Archibald in 1997.

“Zoom in here,” Holt says pointing to a photo she took of the work, “it’s so beautiful, but then when you zoom in again you see the colours are even more extraordinary. I just love her eye.”