National Portrait Gallery

Women in Vogue

Celebrating Sixty Years in Australia

Opening in October 2019, this exhibition showcases sixty years of the Vogue Australia archive together with a special tribute to some remarkable Australian women who have featured in the pages of Vogue, and includes iconic portraits of Kylie Minogue and Elle Macpherson, among others. Early bird tickets on sale now.

The Look

Featuring striking photographic portraits of contemporary figures from the National Portrait Gallery collection, The Look is an aesthetic treat with a lashing of je ne sais quoi.

Primed

Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.

NPPP 2020

Call for entries

National Photographic Portrait Prize entries are now open, closing on 21 October 2019.

Elle Macpherson, 1995 photographed by Andrew Macpherson

Women in Vogue tour

Friday 11 October 2019
until Sunday 24 November 2019

2:30 – 3:00pm

Exhibition ticket requried.

Fashionably Late @ NPG

Friday 25 October 2019

5:00 – 8:00pm

We are keeping our doors open late for a sassy spring soirée. Featuring Hope Wilkins, Adriana+Bianca and Kim Yang.

Out and Loud

Saturday 26 October 2019

2:00 – 4:00pm

Four LGBTIQ+ choirs from across Australasia will perform throughout the afternoon in the beautiful acoustics of the Gordon Darling Hall.

Distinguished dressers

Sunday 27 October 2019

1:30 – 2:30pm

The fabulous Charlotte Smith, owner of The Darnell Collection and author of One Enchanted Evening, Dreaming of Dior and Dreaming of Chanel, shares her love of vintage fashion.

Bookings required

Don Burrows at work, 1998 by Barry Walsh

Canberra Symphony Orchestra Australia Series

Thursday 31 October 2019

6:30 – 8:30pm

Led by Oboist Diana Doherty, this concert showcases the finest new wind music Australia has to offer, culminating in a collaborative performance for oboe and the sound of waterfalls played through your smartphone.

Bookings required

Fashionably Late @ NPG

Friday 1 November 2019

5:00 – 8:00pm

We are keeping our doors open late for a sassy spring soirée. Featuring Neko Pink, LIV LI and Shoeb Ahmad.

More events

Portrait 63

Winter 2019

Rod Mcnicol's method and motivation, 19th century Indigenous peoples, Barrie Cassidy on Bob Hawke, five generations of the Kang family from Korea and more.

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All the stories, in your hands

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Portrait of Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke (Sass & Bide), 2008 by Deborah Paauwe

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Women in Vogue

The Look

Primed

The Colonel (portrait of Walter Withers), 1896 by David Davies

Born on this day

Walter Withers

More portrait anniversaries

Ningali Lawford-Wolf, 1996 (printed 2016) by Stuart Spence

The Portraits

Browse the collection

Portraits of people who have influenced and contributed to the shaping of Australian society.

Portrait Gallery Foundation

Annual Appeal 2019

Your generous support of the Exhibition Fund will provide resources for our talented team to research and develop new exhibition concepts, in collaboration with existing and new international partners.

Education

Information for educators, education tour companies and school groups across all levels.

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About the Gallery

All about our history, building, employment and governance.

Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, 15 Jan 1969 by David Combe

Peaceful front

by David Gist, 13 March 2019

‘Is this one of yours?’ David Combe still remembers reading the letter from his father in early 1969. Like every soldier serving in Vietnam, he valued any missive from home.

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In celebration of #Frocktober we're bringing you some glorious gowns from the portraits in our collection, and the galvanising gals behind them. Lola Montez (1818–1861) was the most famous of the international performers who toured Australia during the boom years of the 1850s. Irish-born, she had spent much of the 1840s touring throughout Europe, attracting praise and scandal in equal measure while also compiling an impressive register of lovers: among them King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who abdicated on her account. She arrived in Australia in 1855 and performed in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide before heading to the goldfields. Her signature ‘Spider Dance’ – in which she enacted having a spider caught in ‘an extremely short gauze skirt’ – caused outrage in some places but was much loved by audiences in Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine. She left Australia in 1856 and took to lecturing on beauty and morality when her stage career ended. Here our curatorial researcher Aimee pays tribute to this much loved portrait of Lola. You can see this portrait on display in Gallery Four. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Portrait: Lola Montes, c. 1845 by Joseph Karl Stieler oil on canvas ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ @ocrf #LolaMontes #JosephKarlStieler #SpiderDance #PortraitAu #Frocktober2019 #BadassWomen #OvarianCancerResearchFoundation #31DaysOfChange #FrockOffCancer #FrockingFabulous #NationalPortraitGallery #NPG #💃

A post shared by National Portrait Gallery, Aus (@portraitau) on Oct 17, 2019 at 3:18pm PDT

Tweets by @PortraitAu