The 2022 A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize

The A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize is awarded biennially to Australian artists who have demonstrated talent and achievement in traditional styles. This includes realist, figurative and representational styles.

The A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize will not be running in 2024. To ensure the prizes can continue to be awarded at the generous levels of previous years, the award will return in 2025. We look forward to another wonderful year for the A.M.E. Bale Art Prize in 2025.

AME Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize 2022 winners

Rick Crossland was announced as the winner of the prestigious $50,000 A.M.E Bale Travelling Scholarship, The A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize is awarded biennially to emerging Australian artists who have demonstrated talent and achievement in traditional styles.  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.

Painting of a mantlepiece with a vase with leaves and pig ornament
Rick Crossland | On the mantlepiece 2022 | Oil on canvas on board | 36 x 51cm
Painting of a house in a farm setting
Rick Crossland | Home 2022 | Oil on board | 25 x 35 cm
Portrait painting of George Davis
Rick Crossland | George Davis at 91. 2022 | Oil on canvas 61 x 76cm
Charcoal drawing of a nude woman at the bedroom window
Rick Crossland | Ann at the bedroom window 2022 | Charcoal on paper | 65 x 40 cm

In addition to the main Travelling Scholarship, two art prizes valued at $5,000 each are also awarded biennially. The 2022 A.M.E. Bale Art Prize in the medium of oils and/or acrylics was awarded to Rick Crossland for his painting The sleep-in and the 2022 A.M.E. Bale Art Prize for works on paper was given to Jo Reitze for her work At the Lon.

Painting of a person asleep in bed
Rick Crossland | The sleep-in | Oil on board | 29 x 39cm
Painting of trees by the coastline
Jo Reitze | At the Lon 2022 | Gouache on paper | 110 x 109 cm

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.  

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.

2022 A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship and Art Prize

The exhibition of finalists showcases the impressive works of the artists selected by the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society judging panel in the following Award categories:

2022 A.M.E Bale Major Award Travelling Scholarship, the A.M.E Bale Art Prize Oil/Acrylic and the A.M.E Bale Art Prize Works on Paper.