Search / forget

Carla Zampatti

Recorded 2019

Ivan Gaal

I know David, whom I used to work with 40 years ago, when he got his HIV/AIDS.

Forget me not

Bill

Jimmy and Jane Barnes, 2020

Purchased 2021

William Barak

The play’s the thing

Penelope Grist charts an immersive path through Stuart Spence’s photography.

Activating the space

Sandra Phillips on portraits of Indigenous activism from Cairns Art Gallery’s 2019 Queen’s Land Blak Portraiture exhibition.

The intellectual larrikin

Barrie Cassidy pays textured tribute to the inimitable Bob Hawke.

Agnes enigma

Karen Quinlan considers the case of Agnes Goodsir, whose low profile in Australia belies her overseas acclaim.

Flash mob

Sarah Engledow trains her exacting lens on the nine photographs from 20/20.

Christmas Island

This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.

20/20 launch speech

Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

Material culture

The Rajah Quilt’s narrative promptings are as intriguing as the textile is intricate.

The art of peace

Sean Davey captures the portrait of a nation renewed.

Flesh, figure and rock

Aimee Board traces Judy Cassab’s path to the Australian outback, arriving at the junction of inspiration and abstraction.

Embrace your inner nerd

The southern winter has arrived. For people in the northern hemisphere (the majority of humanity) the idea of snow and ice, freezing mist and fog in June, potentially continuing through to August and beyond, encapsulates the topsy-turvidom of our southern continent.

Fiona McMonagle

Born: 1977, Letterkenny, Ireland
Works: Melbourne

Poise and Carats

I keep going back to Cartier: The Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia next door, and, within the exhibition, to Princess Marie Louise’s diamond, pearl and sapphire Indian tiara (1923), surely one of the most superb head ornaments ever conceived.

Powerful Indigenous women

June Oscar AO lauds three iconic Aboriginal figures in the Portrait Gallery collection who have inspired and influenced her.

All the way with K of K

Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.

Getting bare

How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.

The Companion

On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.

Swimming every day

National Photographic Portrait Prize judge Christopher Chapman connects this year’s entries to iconic contemporary american photographers.

A.I.

Christopher Chapman ponders our digital identity and selfhood.

Swimming every day

Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2015 Prize.

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville, c. 1825

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

School visit information

All you need to know from COVID-19 and group sizes to cancellations and our Certificate of Currency.

Listomania

Sarah Engledow describes the fall-out once Brett Whiteley stuck Patrick White’s list of his loves and hates onto his great portrait of the writer.

Arianne McNaught

An interview with the photographer.

James, 2009

Liu Wei

Born 1965 in Beijing. Lives and works in Beijing.

Adrian Brown

An interview with the photographer.

Eden, 2011

Beguiling impressions

Sarah Engledow is seduced by the portraits and the connections between the artists and their subjects in the exhibition Impressions: Painting light and life.

Gillian Armstrong, 1985

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Stuart Campbell 2012

Impressions

Impressions: Painting light and life presents portraits by, and of, artists at the heart of Australian impressionism including Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin.

Beautiful bones

Sarah Engledow reflects on the shared life and writing of Dorothy Porter and Andrea Goldsmith.

The more things change

National Photographic Portrait Prize curator, Sarah Engledow, finds reward in a difficult task and ultimately uncovers the essence of portraiture.

Through blue eyes

Works by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan bring the desert, the misty seashore and the hot Monaro plains to exhibition Open Air: Portraits in the landscape.

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

An annual event, the National Youth Self Portrait Prize seeks to encourage young people to embrace self portraiture and its expressive possibilities.

An Australian story

In his speech launching the new National Portrait Gallery building on 3 December 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set the Gallery in a national and historical context.

Money and swat

Andrew Sayers discusses the real cost of George Lambert's Self portrait with gladioli 1922.

Masters of Fare

Masters of fare: chefs, winemakers, providores celebrates men and women who have championed the unique culinary characteristics and produce of Australia, enriching our lives with new ideas and new flavours over the past forty years.

Wenten Rubuntja, 2001

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Wenten Rubuntja, 1998

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Australians in Hollywood

The exhibition Australians in Hollywood celebrated the achievements of Australians in the highly competitive American film industry.

Joel, Mitchell Queensland, 2014