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David M Thomas

Since 1993 Brisbane-based artist David M Thomas has investigated self identity through art works that encompass painting, text, audio, video and performance.

Dempsey's people

Dempsey’s people: a folio of British street portraits 1824–1844 is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.

Inner Worlds

Portraits of Australia’s pioneering psychologists and artworks by artists fascinated by the subconscious mind.

Dissections

This display sets two impressive portraits from the collection into direct dialogue: Sam Jinks’ sculptural self portrait and Nick Mourtzakis’ painted portrait of David Chalmers, along with related maquette and sketches.Together they explore physical and psychological manifestations of the strata of self-hood.

John Brack Portraits

The exhibition includes such striking works as Portrait of Fred Williams, and Barry Humphries in the character of Edna Everage, the enigmatic Portrait of Hal Hattam, a group of revealing self portraits including the mysterious Inside and Outside, as well as endearing portraits of the artist's children.

Arcadia

An exhibition of photographs by John Witzig, drawings by Nicholas Harding and film footage by Albe Falzon, expressive of the free-spirited, hot-blooded energy of Australian surfers under the cloud of conscription to Vietnam.

From Face to Face

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.

Thousand Mile Stare

Thousand mile stare provides a unique portrait of people of rural Australia

WHO ARE YOU

Featuring 130 works across painting, film, photography, screen printing, sculpture, and then some – it explores our inner worlds, outer selves, intimacy, isolation, celebrity and more.

Darling Portrait Prize 2020

The Darling Prize is a new biennial prize for Australian portrait painters, painting Australian sitters. The winner receives a cash prize of $75,000.

Before hand

Revealing the backstories behind the NPG collection, Before hand features interviews with artists and sitters as well as working drawings, scrapbooks, sketches and footage taken in artists’ studios and out on location.

Best of British

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

Mysterious eyes

Boyd’s self-portrait at age 25 is joined by his equally emotive portraits of those around him.

Famous

Australian photographer Karin Catt has photographed world leaders, a host of rock stars and Oscar-winning compatriots Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, and Cate Blanchett.

Portraits for Posterity

Drawn from some of the many donations made to the Gallery's collection, the exhibition Portraits for Posterity pays homage both to the remarkable (and varied) group of Australians who are portrayed in the portraits and the generosity of the many donors who have presented them to the Gallery.

Sporting Archibald

Bare

Bare: Degrees of undress celebrates the candid, contrived, natural, sexy, ironic, beautiful, and fascinating in Australian portraiture that shows a bit of skin. 

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2016

The National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Rarely Everage

The exhibition begins with Barry's childhood in Camberwell, Melbourne and chronicles his days as a struggling actor in Australia and England, his creation of characters including Barry McKenzie, Dame Edna Everage, Sandy Stone and Sir Les Patterson

Eye to eye

Eye to Eye is a summer Portrait Gallery Collection remix arranged by degree of eye contact – from turned away with eyes closed all the way through to right-back-at-you – as we explore artists’ and subjects’ choices around the direction of the gaze.

Karsh

Yousuf Karsh - the most famous portrait photographer in the world - has photographed the statesmen, artists, literary and scientific figures who have defined the 20th century and shaped our lives, In this, his 90th year, the National Portrait Gallery is thrilled to present an exhibition of Karsh's photography of 20th century figures.

A D Hope and his circle

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of poet Alec Derwent Hope AC OBE (1907-2000), the National Portrait Gallery exhibited a selection from its many portraits of Australian poets and authors.

Elvis At 21

Elvis at 21 is a photographic exhibition capturing Elvis’ rise to fame in the year 1956, before security and money built walls between him and his fans.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2014

The National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition is selected from a national field of entries that reflect the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Rick Amor

Rick Amor, noblest yet most unaffected of contemporary Australian portraitists, is also a painter of enigmatic, ominous landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes that haunt the viewer like dreams, dimly-recalled.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

My Favourite Australian

My Favourite Australian is a project developed in collaboration with ABC TV and the people of Australia.

PROMO

This exhibition goes behind-the-scenes and into the spotlight with professional photographers and the stars of Australian television, music and comedy. Whether negotiating the logistics of a big publicity shoot or quietly capturing moments on set during filming, the photographers' stories are intriguing and compelling.

Depth of Field

Over the last five years the National Portrait Gallery has developed a collection of portrait photographs that reflects both the strength and diversity of Australian achievement as well as the talents of our photographers.

Icons

When a portrait communicates determination and individuality as boldly as these do, it has the potential to become an iconic image. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.

Australia and the Nobel Prize

This unique exhibition will give an insight into the private lives, pursuits and work of all the Nobel laureates associated with Australia

Cecil Beaton

Accomplished illustrator, painter, writer and diarist, set designer and one of the most distinguished photographers of the twentieth century, Cecil Beaton is renowned for his portraits of well known faces from the worlds of fashion, literature, and film.

Rennie Ellis

Rennie Ellis: Aussies All is a celebration of the life and work of the late Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.

Open Air

Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.

Carte-o-mania!

Drawn from the NPG’s burgeoning collection of cartes de visite, Carte-o-mania! celebrates the wit, style and substance of the pocket-sized portraits that were taken and collected like crazy in post-goldrush Australia.

Australian Love stories

Reconnect and reflect with our new major exhibition, Australian Love Stories (in real life!) as we explore love, affection and connection in all its guises.

White Whiteley

Eleven works by Brett Whiteley, centred around his scintillating 'Patrick White at Centennial Park 1979-1980'.

Kylie

Kylie Minogue, one of Australia's most famous cultural exports is now the subject of her own exhibition.

Peter Brew-Bevan Portraits

In this exhibition Sydney based photographer Peter Brew-Bevan brings together an intimate collection of works that highlight his passion for the genre of portraiture over the last 10 years

Arthur Boyd Portraits

This is the first in a series of National Portrait Gallery exhibitions to survey the portraits painted by artists who are not thought of, primarily, as portrait painters

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009

In its second year at the National Portrait Gallery, and for the first time touring to other venues, the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 continues to present surprising perspectives on the nature of contemporary portrait photography.

Face the Music

Australia has become recognised for the range and talent of its musicians, composers, conductors and celebrities in general associated with the music industry

Nolan Heads

Nolan Heads will focus on the portraiture of one of Australia's most original painters and one of the few to have achieved an international reputation

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Glossy - Faces Magazines Now

Magazines are the portrait galleries of the 90s... Glossy is about magazines. The exhibition presents the work of eight photographers, Australian by birth or long-term residency, who are producing portraits for publication in magazines around the world.

Australian of the Year

The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.

Max Dupain

During his long and distinguished career Max Dupain took thousands of photographs of people

Nicholas Harding

Nicholas Harding: 28 portraits features paintings of Robert Drewe, John Bell and Hugo Weaving alongside gorgeously coloured recent oil portraits, delicate gouaches and bold ink and charcoal drawings.

Collection: Icons

When a portrait communicates determination and individuality as boldly as these do, it has the potential to become an iconic image. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.

Clifton Pugh

This exhibition offers a comprehensive display of Clifton Pugh's portraits revealing his development and growth from tonal paintings to a unique style that was in demand from politicians, artists, academics and Australian personalities.

Primed

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

Vanity Fair Portraits

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

The Possibilities of Portraiture

What does 'portraiture mean at the end of the 20th century? At the outset of building a national portrait collection it seems an appropriate question to investigate.

Elegance in exile

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.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Mark Strizic

This exhibition traces the creative output of nearly 50 years by one of Australia's landmark living photographers.

Heads of the People

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

Flash

Introduction The National Portrait Gallery’s photographic exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus explores various interpretations of Australian sporting men and women.

Time and light

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.

Of Kings and men

This display celebrates 100 years of the Historic Memorials Collection and its role in commissioning portraits of parliamentary and judicial figures in Australia.

Portrait Paintings by Matthew Perceval

From 1967 until 1981 Matthew Perceval lived and painted in France and during those years produced a large body of portrait paintings.

Australian Visit

The exhibition will include works of art from the NPG Canberra's permanent collection with some inward loans and aims to highlight the achievements of notable Australians.

Studio

Studio: Australian Painters Photographed by R

Sideshow Alley

Death masks, post-mortem drawings and other spooky and disquieting portraits... Come and see how portraits of infamous Australians were used in the 19th century.

The World of Thea Proctor

The World of Thea Proctor is the Portrait Gallery's second major biographical exhibition - that is, the second exhibition to focus exclusively on the life and work of a single individual

Australians in Hollywood

Although perceived to be a recent phenomenon, the 'Aussie invasion' of Hollywood can actually be traced as far back as the early 1900s

Reveries

Featuring works by Australian and New Zealand photographers from the late 1970s up to the present day Reveries focuses on images made in the presence of or consciousness of death.

POL

POL was a magazine that ran from 1969 to 1986

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Uncommon Australians

This exhibition showcases portraits acquired through the generosity of the National Portrait Gallery’s Founding Patrons, L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC.

Mirror With A Memory

This is the first major exhibition to examine photographic portraiture in Australia, from its beginnings in the early 1840s to the present day

Making Portraits

The considered matching of artist to subject has produced an amazing collection of unique and original works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery

To Look Within

This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of self-portraits in Australia, from the colonial period to the present

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.

Husbands and Wives

'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.

First Ladies

First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.

Judy Cassab

The artist's diary profiles six decades of Cassab's work, from the early portrait commissions of the 1950s to later paintings that have helped confirm her eminent place in the canon of Australian portraiture.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.