AS “CityNews” joined in the unpacking session at Watson Arts Centre this morning for the 2015 Bald Archy prize, it was evident that this year’s crop of satirical portraits will be a bumper one.

You can safely predict there will be no prizes for good taste or photographically accurate renditions of the public figures lampooned in the show, but there will be more than a few laughs. We counted no fewer than eight former winners among this year’s entrants.

As we predicted last week, Tasmanian Senator Jacquie Lambie and music personality Molly Meldrum lead the field in 2015, but this morning’s unpacking suggested that Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey is not too far behind them in popularity as a subject.

There are, to be sure, plenty of non-politicians, like James Packer and Russell Crowe, but without doubt, political figures are the front-runners, many of them portrayed with savage cruelty.

Although the Bald Archy show opens this week in Canberra, where founder of the award, Peter Batey, hopes it will attract attention in the Parliament House press gallery, we won’t know who actually wins until after the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, is unveiled later in the year.

Meantime judge Maude the cockatoo from Coolac will have plenty of time to contemplate her final decision.

The Bald Archy Exhibition, Watson Arts Centre, Aspinall Street, Watson, every day, February 6-March 8, entry $5.