Heath Tops Aussie Art Awards

Heath Ledger Portrait by Vincent Fantauzzo Wendell Teodoro/WireImage.com

Heath Ledger has just been immortalized—and honored—in one more medium.

A haunting portrait of the late actor, painted by Melbourne artist Vincent Fantauzzo just weeks before the star's January death, has received the People's Choice Award at Australia's annual Archibald Prize art awards.

The prestigious award was unsurprisingly awarded to the artist after the exhibition was voted on by more than 32,000 people and became an unofficial shrine for the actor.

The artwork also placed second for the 2008 Archibald Prize, the nation's top prize for portraiture.

Fantauzzo turned down all offers—and there were plenty—to buy the portrait, instead giving it to Ledger's mother Sally Bell, who in turn donated the canvas to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

View Next Articles

9 Comments

Now loading...

Add Your Comment!

Guests

E! Online members

Register | Forgot password?

Play nice and have fun. And please, no HTML tags or special characters including [&*#()!@$].
You've got 1000 characters left.

Post Comment

The Big Picture

Walk This Way Michael J. Fox jams with Steven Tyler at a rockin' Parkinson's charity event in NYC

More Photos
GRAB & SHARE
Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.
Click Here

Our Partners

  • Huffington Post
  • PopEater

Get Your E! News Now

Text ENEWS to 4INFO (44636) for daily celeb news alerts

Standard messaging rates apply.

Did you know you can grab smokin' hot E! Online news, review and gossip through our RSS service?

New to RSS feeds? Learn more >>

Birthdate:

Enter your full birthdate:

  • Opt in for Breaking News Alerts

has been subscribed to the E! News Now Newsletter.

To change your settings, go to your preferences.

Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.