Artist accused of winning prize with ‘imitation’ won Australian award with piece ‘influenced’ by Basquiat

Jane Allan’s winning Darling portrait prize painting has raised eyebrows after her Doyles art award piece was compared to artist Nicholas Harding

An Australian painter was “clearly influenced” by New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in a major prize-winning work, according to the National Portrait Gallery, after she was accused of winning a separate $20,000 prize with “an imitation” of a Nicholas Harding piece.

The National Portrait Gallery has declined to comment further on the marked similarities between a 1982 work by Basquiat, Untitled (Two Heads on Gold), and a work by Lennox Head artist Jane Allan, titled Weight of the Mind’s Periapt.
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