Jenny Sages

Jenny Sages is an Archibald Prize People's Choice Award winning Australian artist born 1933 in Shanghai, China. She arrived in Australia in 1948. After being expelled from East Sydney Tech, Jenny moved to New York to study at Franklin School of Art. She was a freelance writer and illustrator for Vogue Australia until the 1980s before starting full-time painting in 1985 at the age of 52.

She has been a finalist for the Archibald Prize at least 20 times.

She has also been the hung in the Archibald as the subject of the work of Jiawei Shen's 2012 Finalist's work The lady from Shanghai (Jenny Sages)

She has also been hung in the Blake Prize and Dobell Prize. She has won the Portia Geach Memorial Award twice: in 1994 for her portrait Ann Thomson, and in 1992 for her portrait Nancy Borlase and Laurie Short. She received a highly commended in the Wynne Prize in 1999 with The Leichhardt. She won the Wynne Prize in 2005.

Sages was one of five artists featured in the award winning documentary film, Two Thirds Sky - Artists in Desert Country, directed by Sean O'Brien in 2002.

She was interviewed in the 2005 Peter Berner documentary Loaded Brush.

Sages is the subject of the documentary Paths to Portraiture by filmmaker Catherine Hunter. For the 2011 Archibald Prize, Jenny painted Jack Sages her husband and companion of 55 years. The painting was accepted but Jack died before the exhibition opened. In 2012 Sages turned her gaze inward in an attempt to capture her grief. Hunter was with the artist as she dealt with her husband’s death and then the 2012 Archibald Prize success.

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