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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

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Christina Stead

Biography

Christina Stead (1902-1983) writer, was born and educated in Sydney and spent most of her working life - from 1928 until 1974 - living in Europe and the United States.

2 portraits in the collection

Christina Stead

In their own words

Recorded 1969

Christina Stead, 1981

Jacqueline Mitelman

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Christine Stead, 1976 (printed 2017)

Robert McFarlane

Portrait, inkjet print on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Ada May Plante

Biography

Ada May Plante (1875–1950), artist, was born in New Zealand and came to Melbourne with her family in 1888.

1 portrait in the collection

Alexander Miller

Biography

Alex Miller (b. 1936), one of Australia’s most decorated and popular authors, migrated from England to Australia on his own as a sixteen-year-old.

3 portraits in the collection

Lily Brett OAM

Biography

Lily Brett OAM (b. 1946) is a New York-based novelist, essayist and poet.

2 portraits in the collection

Michelle de Kretser

Biography

Michelle de Kretser (b. 1957), author, came to Melbourne with her Sinhalese Dutch parents in 1972.

1 portrait in the collection

The Writer, Peter Goldsworthy, 2018

Deidre But-Husaim

Portrait, oil on canvas

Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018

Lily Brett, n.d. (printed 2021)

Jacqueline Mitelman

Portrait, inkjet print on paper

Purchased with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC 2021

Chrissy Amphlett "Temperamental", 1989

Ivan Durrant

Portrait, synthetic polymer paint on composition board

Gift of the artist 2001. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Self portrait, n.d.

Ada May Plante

Portrait, pen and ink, pencil on paper laid on cardboard

Gift of Dr Penny Olsen, Peter Woollard and Artemis Georgiades 2015

Margaret Fink, 1975

Lewis Morley

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Study for The Writer, Peter Goldsworthy, 2018

Deidre But-Husaim

Portrait, oil on canvas

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018

Chrissy Amphlett

Biography

Christina 'Chrissy' Amphlett (1959–2013), singer/songwriter, was best known for her energetic performances as the lead singer of rock band the Divinyls, often in her trademark school uniform and fishnet stockings.

1 portrait in the collection

Kate Grenville AO

Biography

Kate Grenville AO (b. 1950), novelist, studied in Sydney and worked as a film editor before spending several years in the UK and Europe, where she began to write.

2 portraits in the collection

Margaret Fink AO

Biography

Margaret Fink AO (b. 1933), film producer, was a key figure in the renaissance of Australian cinema in the 1970s.

2 portraits in the collection

Michelle de Kretser, Geography & History, 2013

Weng-Ho Chong

Portrait, synthetic polymer paint, charcoal, pastel and conté on linen

Gift of Michelle de Kretser 2015. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

William Robertson, c. 1852

an unknown artist

Portrait, 1/6 plate daguerreotype, hand coloured with case

Gift of Fiona Turner (née Robertson) and John Robertson 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Peter Goldsworthy AM

Biography

Peter Goldsworthy AM (b. 1951), medical doctor and writer, was born in Minlaton, South Australia, and grew up in various country towns as his father, a school teacher, moved for work.

2 portraits in the collection

Michael Leunig, 2004

Jacqueline Mitelman

Portrait, type C photograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

Untitled #15 (Kylie Minogue performs at Tour of Duty concert at Dili Stadium, East Timor, 21 December 1999)

Oz Elsewhere

Get me outta here

General content

While the blues-inspired hard guitar riffs of Australian pub rock were shaping tastes, a number of artists were developing music primed for success on the international stage.

Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly), 1885-86

Brothers on farms

Magazine article by Malcolm Robertson, 2011

Malcolm Robertson tells the family history of one of Australia's earliest patrons of the arts, his Scottish born great great great grandfather, William Robertson.

200 Years of Portraiture

About Face article

To celebrate his family bicentenary, Malcolm Robertson looks at the portraiture legacy left by his ancestors.

Prince William of Wales, by Mario Testino, 2003 publ. September 2003.
Credit: Mario Testino

Vanity Fair Portraits

Photographs 1913-2008

Previous exhibition, 2009

Vanity Fair Portraits traces the birth and evolution of photographic portraiture through the archives of Vanity Fair magazine.

The Writer: Peter Goldsworthy, 2018

by Deidre But-Husaim

General content

Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AO and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018.

Elegance in exile

Portrait drawings from colonial Australia

Previous exhibition, 2012

Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.

Time and light

In Gallery Seven

Previous exhibition, 2023

This sample of 56 photographs takes in some of the smallest photographs we own and some of the largest, some of the earliest and some of the most recent, as well as multiple photographic processes from daguerreotypes to digital media.

Portrait of an English Woman c. 1532-5 (detail)

A new perspective

Magazine article by Celina Fox, 2006

An exhibition devoted to Hans Holbein's English commissions shows the portraitist bringing across the Channel new technical developments in art - with a dazzling facility.

HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, 2006 Ralph Heimans AM

Dane reign

Magazine article by Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby, 2018

Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby bring eloquent context to Ralph Heimans’ portraits of Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

Cultural kaleidoscope

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

The complex connections between four creative Australians; Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Robert Helpmann and Peter Sculthorpe.

Mick Jagger, Madonna and Tony Curtis, 1997

The Vanity model

Magazine article by David Friend, 2009

Vanity Fair Editor David Friend describes how the rebirth of the magazine sated our desire for access into the lives of celebrities and set the standard for the new era of portrait photography.

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