The National Art School has awarded leading Australian artists Cressida Campbell AM and Guido Maestri the 2025 National Art School Fellowship.
The National Art School Fellowship is an annual award that acknowledges the exceptional achievements of eminent visual artists, arts administrators, writers, advocates and academics who have made outstanding contributions to the visual arts community in Australia; contributed to the significant recognition and advancement of the National Art School, Sydney; and, whose life and work continues to inspire its students.
Campbell and Maestri join the thirty-nine Australians who have been honoured for their exceptional achievement or service within the professional arts domain since the inaugural Fellowship was awarded in 2002 to Colin Lanceley AO: Elisabeth Cummings OAM, Margaret Olley AO AC, Chris O’Doherty aka Reg Mombassa, Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James AO, Fiona Foley AO and Ken Unsworth AM, as well as curators, gallerists and philanthropists including John Kaldor AO, Roslyn Oxley OAM, Frank Watters OAM and Wendy Whiteley OAM. The 2024 Fellowships were awarded to artists Karla Dickens and Euan Macleod.
Fellow Guido Maestri, Director and CEO Dr Kristen Sharp and Fellow Cressida Campbell AM at the National Art School, Sydney, 22 May 2025. Photograph: Peter Morgan
Across her forty-year practice, Sydney-based artist Cressida Campbell has created single-edition prints and woodblock paintings that capture the beauty in everyday experiences. Campbell is a graduate of the National Art School and studied woodblock printing at the prestigious Yoshida Hanga Academy in Tokyo.
From still life to intimate interiors and vibrant landscapes, Campbell’s detailed attention to line, shape and colour across her unique work has seen her receive numerous awards, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales Trustees’ Watercolour Prize and the Australia Council for the Arts Verdaccio Studio Residency in Italy. A major exhibition survey of her work was held at the National Gallery of Australia in 2022–23.
Winner of the 2009 Archibald Prize, Sydney-based artist Guido Maestri is also a graduate of the National Art School and is widely regarded for his expressive, gestural works exploring the natural world, ancient ecosystems and the cycles of nature. His immersive landscape paintings question notions of reality and traverse the impact of humanity upon the natural world.
Maestri is an eight-time finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and his works are featured in several institutional collections, including the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia and Parliament House in Canberra. Significant group shows include WHO ARE YOU: Australian Portraiture at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2022, the NGV’s largest exhibition of Australian portraiture, Versus Rodin: Bodies across Space and Time at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2017, and a solo presentation at Sydney Contemporary with Jan Murphy Gallery in 2019.
