Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2024, National Portrait Gallery

We were absolutely delighted with every single entry we received. Thank you to everyone who entered, you really did make it extremely difficult! National Portrait Gallery staff judges Marina Neilson and Mark Mohell, together with guest judge, celebrated children’s book author Jeannie Baker, selected 12 portraits from over 550 entries. A big congratulations to all the finalists!

For those of you that don’t know, Little Darlings is for primary and secondary students, with four separate categories across Kindergarten to Year 12. For the 2024 prize, we asked them to respond to the theme ‘My story’ by painting, drawing, photographing, printing or combining all of these to make their portrait.

Finalists age 5–7

A Trip to Mayfield Garden, 2022 Angie Xu

1 My Lovely Sister, 2023 Claire Yu. 2 A Trip to Mayfield Garden, 2022 Angie Xu. 3 My Mummy, 2023 Finn Schwarz. 4 The Pasta Girl, 2023 Sophie Tsai.

Finalists age 8–11

My daddy has dementia, he rests a lot, 2023 Anna Macak

1 Bacon Sizzle, 2023 Marlowe E. Haskas. 2 My Emotions, 2023 Ayden Wahab. 3 Teen Blooming, 2023 Emme Gleeson. 4 My daddy has dementia, he rests a lot, 2023 Anna Macak.

Finalists age 12–15

1 My Sister's Braids for School, 2023 Ida Welch. 2 Theodora and Daphne, 2023 Calypso Efkarpidis.

Finalists age 16–18

1 A Painting for my 13 Year Old Self, 2023 Ting Jiang. 2 Morphed, 2023 Charlotte Kohinga.

The Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize will be back in 2026. To stay informed about the Prize and the call for entries, sign up to our Education newsletter.

Related information

Twelve portraits of finalists for the Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2023

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2023

Previous exhibition, 2023

Little Darlings is for primary and secondary students, with four separate categories across Kindergarten to Year 12. Responding to the theme ‘Me and my place’, students painted, drew, photographed, printed or combined all of these to make their portrait.

My Awesome Australian

Visual Arts & Civics and Citizenship (upper primary)

2:00pm, Thu 24 Jul – Thu 28 Aug

To celebrate 50 years of the Order of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery invites school students nationwide to create portraits of outstanding community members.

My Awesome Australian

Visual Arts & Civics and Citizenship (lower primary)

9:15am, Thu 24 Jul – Thu 28 Aug

To celebrate 50 years of the Order of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery invites school students nationwide to create portraits of outstanding community members.