Mitch Cairns wins Archibald Prize 2017 for portrait of artist Agatha Gothe-Snape

Mitch Cairns has won the Archibald Prize 2017 for his oil on linen portrait of his partner, artist Agatha Gothe-Snape.

Cairns had been shortlisted for the $100,000 portrait prize four times before his win on Friday at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney.

"I'd like to thank, of course, Agatha, my beautiful partner, I love you very much," Cairns said at the announcement.

Cairns is a figurate painter and cartoonist who graduated from the National Art School.

There were 43 finalists this year - the 96th year of Australia's foremost portraiture prize.

Jun Chen's portrait of Ray Hughes came in as Highly Commended.

The Sulman prize for subject painting/genre or mural was won by Joan Ross for 'Oh history, you lied to me'.

The Wynne Prize for best landscape painting or figure sculpture went to Betty Kuntiwa Pumani for her painting 'Antara'.

This is a breaking news story. More information will be added as it comes to hand.