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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.

Heads of the People

A Portrait of Colonial Australia

Previous exhibition from Friday 30 June 2000 until Sunday 29 October 2000

For Tom Roberts - Australia's best nineteenth-century portrait painter - neither a proto-national portrait gallery nor more popular collections of portrait heads, were sufficient public celebrations for the notables of Australian history.

Bungaree, late chief of the Broken Bay tribe, Sydney, 1836 William Fernyhough

This exhibition examines the development of portraiture in colonial Australia that led to the emergence of a National Portrait Gallery.

13 portraits
(view all)

1. Boardman, Lake Macquarie tribe, 1836 William Fernyhough. 2. Tommy, Broken Bay tribe, 1836 William Fernyhough.

Related information

Leonard French, Heathcote, Victoria, 1969 (printed 2000) David Moore

From Face to Face

Portraits by David Moore

Previous exhibition, 2000

Through David Moore's camera we meet many of the outstanding figures of the twentieth century - in diverse areas of achievement - as well as anonymous faces which speak directly to us in these photographs.

Sir Richard Branson, 1999 by David Mach (b. 1956)

Best of British

Contemporary Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery, London

Previous exhibition, 2000

For the first hundred years or so of its existence, The National Portrait Gallery in London had no contemporary collection at all

Monochromatic Self-Portrait, 2000 by Genevieve Preston

Headspace 1

Previous exhibition, 2000

Headspace showcases portrait art produced by secondary students from Year 7 to Year 12 in Government, Catholic and Independent schools in Canberra and its surrounding regions extending to Wollongong, Deniliquin, Leeton, Crookwell, Bombala, Narooma and Albury