Elizabeth Ann Dewar Churcher AO (née Cameron; 11 January 1931 – 31 March 2015) was an Australian arts administrator, best known as director of the National Gallery of Australia from 1990 to 1997.
[2] In 1942 as an 11-year-old, Churcher saw Blandford Fletcher's Evicted at the Queensland Art Gallery, which inspired her to become an artist.
She left in 1990 after disagreements with Robert Holmes à Court about the gallery's acquisition of a Pierre Bonnard painting.
During her tenure the museum also purchased Golden Summer, Eaglemont by Arthur Streeton for $3.5 million.
The prize is awarded for the "best portrait painting preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics".
[7] The National Gallery of Australia introduced the Betty Churcher Memorial Oration in 2022; the inaugural speaker was the Australian director of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, Melissa Chiu.