Irish painter Patrick Graham and Northern Irish artist Cathy Wilkes have been named the first winners of Dublin Gallery Weekend's Francis Bacon Awards for Irish Visual Arts. Graham takes the €25,000 Lifetime Achievement Award, worth about $29,000, while Wilkes receives the €15,000 Mid-Career Artist Award, about $17,000.

Born in County Westmeath in 1943, Graham was among the first Irish artists to embrace Abstract Expressionism and co-founded Dublin's artist-run Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. He is widely regarded as one of the country's most important painters. Wilkes, born in Belfast in 1966 and based in Glasgow, works across painting, collage, installation and sculpture, known for her off-kilter domestic scenes. A 2008 Turner Prize nominee, she represented Scotland at the 2005 Venice Biennale and Britain at the 2019 edition.

The winners were selected by a jury chaired by Studio Voltaire board chair Emma Goltz, with Barbara Dawson, director of Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery; Brian Cass, head of Hayward Gallery Touring in London; critic and curator Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith; and Mary McCarthy, director of Cork's Crawford Art Gallery. The jury credited Graham with a crucial role in the resurgence of Irish painting in the 1980s and praised what it called the bruised beauty and fragile grace of Wilkes's work.

The prizes are supported by Château La Coste, the French wine estate and sculpture park in Provence. The awards will be presented during this year's Dublin Gallery Weekend, running November 5–8, and both recipients have been invited to present work at Château La Coste, giving the new Irish prizes an immediate international platform.