National Portrait Gallery Media Room
Welcome to the National Portrait Gallery Media Room. To view media releases please click on the links listed below. The most recent media releases are listed first.
Current Media Releases|
| EXHIBITION: Impressions: Painting light and life
Step into the world of big hats, veils, lace, satin, pipes, sunshine and shimmery rain this summer at an exhibition of Australian portraits from 1885 to 1915. The National Portrait Gallery will preview Impressions: Painting light and life to the media Thursday 24 November 2011 at 11am. Artist Ben Quilty, who will open the show later that evening, will attend.
The works in Impressions are beguilingly familiar to us. Some are by artists not immediately recognisable; others are rarely seen works by big-name artists including portraits by Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin. Sourced from public and private collections around the country the large oil portraits, drawings, prints, sculpture and impressionistic sketches are remarkable for their freshness and immediacy.
These Australian Impressionists often worked under soaring, burning light, and in their freely-painted works they pushed representation of light to the limit. They depicted people who were determined to create a culture and a distinctive kind of art in Australia. Impressions evokes delicious immersion in a range of Australian characters and styles of the period, and reveals an intertwined community of people to whom art was life itself.
The exhibition will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery from Friday 25 November 2011 to 4 March 2012.
Released 10 November 2011Download PDF | Download Word |
Link to Publicity Images (password required)
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| EXHIBITION: Jo's Mo Show (with beards)
Jo’s Mo show (with beards) traces and celebrates changes in facial hair fashions from the 1780s to the 1980s, connecting these changes to the social, cultural and political conditions that initiated them. The paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures from the NPG collection in Jo’s Mo show create a spectacular visual timeline of changes in facial hair fashion.
The online show (with a physical element) reveals stunning variations in facial hair fashions. From the be-wigged and clean-shaven gents of the eighteenth century to the 70s blokes brandishing handlebar mos, the portraits demonstrate that such styles are more than mere whim; and that men's choices to sport facial hair were often connected to shifts in ideas about politics, society, identity or masculinity.
Until the late 1840s, beards were associated with political radicalism, insanity, or other ‘undesirable’ factors to be avoided by respectable men. Masculinity was redefined in the 1850s and beards reappeared as a sign of virility, dependability and strength. This had particular currency in Australia, where beards and mos were adopted as a sign of independence and as an emblem of a rugged, frontier mentality. By Federation, Australian men began to see themselves as urbane members of a healthy, youthful ‘new nation’ – combined with the trend towards better grooming around the turn of the century, with beards retreating somewhat (unless worn by aged men – like Sir Henry Parkes – as signs of wisdom). In the 20th century, war and Hollywood’s influence favoured clean-shavedness until the cultural and social changes of the 60s and 70s saw hairiness come back into fashion.
The online component features around 50 portraits from the NPG collection, some specifically commissioned illustrations and short profiles of the particular styles. The physical aspect portrays a similar number of works, grouped together on feature walls in the Collection Display Galleries.
Jo’s mo show was launched at the Last Fridays Drinks on Friday 28 October to coincide with the Canberra launch of Movember.
Exhibition dates Friday 28 October 2011 – 1 April 2012
Media Enquiries: Tim Langford, Marketing and Media
T. 02 6102 7080 M. 0408 616 937
E. tim.langford@npg.gov.au
Released 24 October 2011Download PDF | Download Word |
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| EXHIBITION: National Photographic Portrait Prize 2011
The National Photographic Prize, in its fourth year at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, attracts entries from professional and amateur photographers throughout Australia. This year, National Portrait Gallery curators Dr Sarah Engledow and Dr Chris Chapman joined the Director of Adelaide’s Experimental Art Foundation, Dr Domenico de Clario, and the National Portrait Gallery Director, Ms Louise Doyle, to select the outstanding fifty-five works from the 1200 submitted.
The photographs in the show cover the span of human life: the vulnerability of the newborn; the beauty of youth; the unexpected turns of middle age; the joyfulness and sorrows of the elderly. Some are playful, some are heartrending; together they represent a snapshot of contemporary Australia, seen through the eyes of Australians of diverse backgrounds and walks of life.
With the generous support of Visa, the National Portrait Gallery is offering a prize of $25,000 for the most outstanding photographic portrait. The judges will reconvene in February 2011 to select the portrait to be awarded the prize.
The National Photographic Portrait Prize will be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, from 25 February 2011 to 26 April 2011. Entry to the exhibition is free. The exhibition will tour to Bunbury, Geraldton and Fremantle in Western Australia and the Yarra Ranges in Victoria, in 2011-2012.
Released 24 December 2010Download PDF |
Link to Publicity Images (password required)
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Media Enquiries
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Media Enquiries
Tim Langford
Media & Marketing
Ph (+61 2) 6102 7080
Fax (+61 2) 6102 7001
Mob 0408 616 937
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National Portrait Gallery
King Edward Terrace
Parkes, ACT 2600
www.portrait.gov.au
Ph (+61 2) 6102 7000
Fax (+61 2) 6102 7001
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