Printmaking is taught as a major subject in all our art schools, however staff are being cut back due to federal government budget cuts and an increase in university fees. Although printmaking is regarded as the hot art medium of the late 20th century these cut backs could eventually spell the end of our printmaking courses. Some staff are being asked to resign and take redundancy packages. Our top art competitions are the Archibald Prize, the Doug Moran Portrait Prize and the Dobell Prize for Drawing. The Dobell Prize for Drawing is quite a new competition.
Painting is still the dominant art medium.
We do not have a high calibre printmaking competition like the Biennale in Ljubljana. None of our competitions have such wonderful and large catalogues such as those produced by the Macedonian Triennale and the Ljubljana Biennale. Australian curators do not differentiate between printmakers and artists who get prints editioned. Nor do they acknowledge the significance of the international printmaking triennales and biennales despite the fact that some of them have been running since the 1950's. Quite a large proportion of professional artists simply do not enter competitions.