Celebrating its 30th touring year, the Bald Archy Prize is one of Australia’s most beloved and irreverent art competitions. Known for its blend of satire, skill, and unmistakable Australian larrikin spirit, the prize invites artists to submit comic or satirical portraits of Australians distinguished in art, science, letters, politics, sport, or the media.

Finalists compete for a $10,000 acquisitive first prize and the $2,000 People’s Choice Award, proudly sponsored by Briggs Law. Judged by the world’s only avian art critic, the sulphur-crested Professor Maude Cockatoo, the Bald Archy Prize celebrates the lighter side of art and culture.

With an online PhD from the Marilyn Munro University of Little Rock, Professor Maude Cockatoo is the most qualified art critic, avian or otherwise, in Australia (according to Maude). As Coolac’s Visual Arts Laureate, Maude has been the sole judge of the Bald Archy Prize from its inception at the 1994 Coolac Festival of Fun.

Maude’s number one rule for a prize-winner is that it must be funny. Her idea of humour, according to a 2015 interview includes, “wit, slapstick, satire, vulgarity, farce, black comedy, irreverence and everything else that falls between high and low comedy”. On the other hand, Maude loathes ‘hate portraiture’, or ‘soap box art’ as she calls it.