Peter Wegner first participated in a group exhibition in 1977, when he had had no art training. The following year he gained a two-year AME Bale residential painting scholarship under Sir William Dargie. In 1985 he graduated in fine arts from the Phillip Institute of Technology, from which he later also gained a postgraduate diploma. From 1996 he was a Lecturer in the Drawing Department of Ballarat University and has since been a visiting lecturer at Latrobe and RMIT. He has painted several portraits on commission and was a finalist in the 1998 Doug Moran Portrait Prize and the 2000 Archibald and Sporting Prizes. The National Portrait Gallery acquired his portrait of bionic ear pioneer Graeme Clark in 2001; and his portrait of Don Argus was acquired by gift from BHP Billiton in 2004. He completed a Master of Fine Arts at Monash University, where he has also worked as a lecturer, in 2007. Wegner has held regular solo exhibitions since 1982 and his work has been included in numerous group shows, including most recently the Dobell Prize for Drawing (AGNSW, 2012), the BP Portrait Prize (NPG London and NPG Edinburgh, 2012); and the Archibald Prize (2011). In 2013, Wegner was awarded the $20,000 Gallipoli Art Prize – an acquisitive prize established in 2006 by the Gallipoli Memorial Club and awarded to works commemorating the Gallipoli campaign. His work is held in many private, university and municipal collections, and by institutions such as the National Library of Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the State Library of Victoria and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.
