Noel McKenna’s painting William Nuttall with horses in field was ignored by the judges in last year’s Archibald Prize.

Fast-forward 12 months and the same work has scooped the $75,000 Darling Portrait Prize for the veteran Sydney artist. Actually, it’s not quite the same work. McKenna made a small revision in the interim, adding a tiny owl perched on a fence to the original scene.

“I added the owl to it before I put it into the Darling Prize and I suppose it brought me good luck,” says McKenna. “I kind of identify with the owl as an animal. I don’t really know why. I suppose in some ways I like owls in that you very rarely see them. They lurk in the background a bit and I am a little bit like that myself. I’m quite an introverted person, so the owl is me, really.”

The winning portrait is instantly recognisable as the work of McKenna, who won the 1994 Sulman Prize and has been a regular finalist in all the major prizes in his long career. The subject is his long-time agent and friend William Nuttall, depicted in a field with some of his horses.

“I was staying with him one weekend, and he just drove me to a paddock,” says McKenna. “I took some photos of him with the horses in the paddock and I liked the composition that came out. So that’s how the painting evolved.

“I liked it as a painting but one’s own view of work doesn’t always correspond with that of the judges, of course. So it’s always sort of a nice serendipity when they like what you like.”

Horses and dogs feature regularly in McKenna’s spare, angular paintings reflecting his passion for animals.

“I kind of believe animals have a complexity about them more so than a lot of people give them credit for,” he says. “I feel they actually have a soul. I just feel very, very sensitive to them, I suppose.”