Wee Waa High grad wins Archibald Prize
A former Wee Waa High School student is the 2025 winner of Australia’s most prestigious portraiture prize.
28 May 2025


Wee Waa High graduate Julie Fragar has won Australia’s most prestigious art prize for her portrait of fellow artist and colleague Justene Williams.
Ms Fragar’s work, Flagship Mother Multiverse (Justene), depicts Ms Williams as an ‘active master of a multiverse of characters and events’.
Former teacher Peter Carrett told the Narrabri Courier Ms Fragar had always been a talented artist.
“Julie showed great ability and aptitude for art at school. Her teachers would be very proud of their former student,” he said.
“It just goes to show that you can grow up anywhere and still reach the top of the tree in your chosen profession.”
As well as the accolades that come with being the Archibald Prize winner, Ms Fragar also received prize money of $100,000.
In a statement, she said winning the major art prize was a career highlight.
“Thinking back to myself as a 17-year-old showing up at the Sydney College of the Arts – a kid from country NSW – it’s incredible to think I have won the Archibald Prize,” she said.
“To be the winner of the Archibald Prize is a point of validation.
“It means so much to have the respect of my colleagues at the Art Gallery. It doesn’t get better than that.”
In an article featured in the Wee Waa High newsletter from 2020, Ms Fragar said spending time in the school’s art room was one of her happiest memories.
“I could not overstate the impact that growing up in Wee Waa and going to Wee Waa High School has had on my life,” she said.
“Growing up in Wee Waa taught me how to relate to an incredibly broad range of people. In a small town there are not enough people to section yourself off to only people whose values and background are exactly like yours.”
Ms Fragar said her love of art and English was cultivated by her favourite teachers, Jacqui Harrison and Wayne Eade.
“It was a good school with lots of really dedicated, smart and valuable teachers,” she said.
Ms Fragar graduated from Wee Waa High in 1994 before attending Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney.
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