REGULAR McClelland Guild of Artists tutor and demonstrator, Jenny Croom of Patterson Lakes, has won the first Australian Portrait Artist of the Year competition screened by the ABC.
An exhibition of her portraits was opened on Sunday (1 Feb) at the Art House Gallery, within Tyabb Packing House, and is on show until 28 February.
The ABC’s Portrait Artist of the Year is a spin-off from the popular British program now in its 13th series. The local version was judged by three Australian art experts – Director of the National Portrait Gallery Bree Pickering; award-winning multidisciplinary artist Abdul Abdullah; and Associate Professor of Art History at the Australian National University Robert Wellington.
Croom made it through the heats and finals painting noted sitters in just four hours to win. Her prize was a commission to hang at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. The sitter was chef and restaurateur Kylie Kwong. The finished work is now on show at the NPG, where Croom also last week conducted a portrait tutorial.
Aged 77, Croom said the win was the culmination of a lifetime of painting. After years of enjoying landscape painting, painting faces was the most challenging of all.
“Portrait of a real person requires an involvement like no other”, said Croom.
“I want to communicate something deeper, something more than the physical likeness. Only then do I feel the work is finished.”
The Art House Gallery, Tyabb Packing House, Mornington-Tyabb Road, is open from 10am to 5pm Thursday to Sunday.
Firs published in the Frankston Times – 10 February 2026
