Michael Zavros is the ANZ People's Choice Award winner for the 2026 Archibald Prize, for his portrait of author and Jewish community leader Alex Ryvchin.

Zavros' work was selected by visitors to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, who are given the opportunity to vote for their favourite work after viewing the Archibald, Wynn, and Sulman Prizes exhibition. This year, the gallery reported 45,769 votes in the ANZ People’s Choice competition – the highest number of votes ever received in the award’s history.

Zavros, who hails from Brisbane is a seven-time Archibald finalist, and an esteemed name in the Australian contemporary art scene. His work is a large-scale hyperrealist oil painting, which depicts Ryvchin standing at the water's edge, holding a tefillin, which is a traditional Jewish object.

According to a media release, Zavros and Ryvchin were brought together in rather unusual circumstances, after friends and family pointed out their uncannily similar appearance. Zavros was compelled to use Ryvchin as his subject after not only following his advocacy work more closely, but also discovering his own Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. The result is a work "that was as much about connection and understanding as it was about physical likeness."

Zavros' prize is valued at $5000. In a statement about his win, he said, "By a strange connection – a physical likeness – I found common ground with Alex and realised that what unites us as Australians is far more powerful than what divides us. It is truly humbling that the work has resonated so strongly with audiences to the exhibition."

His prize rounds out the Archibald, Wynn, and Sulman Prize for 2026. The exhibition is now in its final weeks, running until Sunday 16 August at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Tickets and more information are available on the AGNSW wesbite.