2025 A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize

Andrew Li was announced as the winner of the prestigious $50,000 A.M.E Bale Travelling Scholarship. This prestigious art prize is intended to encourage, support and advance the classical training of emerging artists (in their early to mid-career) at any stage of life, who are pursuing the study and practice of traditional art and who desire to study the works of old masters.

In addition to the main Travelling Scholarship, two art prizes valued at $5,000 each are also awarded biennially. The 2025 A.M.E. Bale Art Prize in the medium of oils and/or acrylics was awarded to Liz Stute for her painting Storyteller and the 2025 A.M.E. Bale Art Prize for works on paper was given to Deevya Desai for her work Dale.

The A.M.E Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize is managed by Perpetual Trustee Company - a part of the Perpetual group - as the trustee of the Alice Marian Ellen Bale Art Foundation Trust.  

The judging panel is comprised through the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society Inc who assist Perpetual Trustee Company Limited as the Trustee of The Alice Marian Ellen Bale Foundation Trust, in awarding the scholarship and prize.

The works by the Award winners are featured in the exhibition of finalists which showcases the impressive works by the artists selected by the judging panel in the Major Award Travelling Scholarship, Oils or Acrylics and Works on Paper categories. See the 2025 A.M.E Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize exhibition of finalist’s catalogue.

A.M.E. Bale was born in Melbourne in 1875 and studied art under Frederick McCubbin and L Bernard Hall at the National Gallery Art School in Melbourne. She developed a reputation as a fine artist who distinguished herself particularly as one of Australia’s pre-eminent flower and still life painters of the early 20th Century. She established the A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize through her will to support Australian artists in perpetuity.