Search / robert brown

Adrian Brown

An interview with the photographer.

Elliot Brown

This portrait is called Jaye and it's a photo of my friend. She's a member of the Multicultural Society in Geraldton.

Californian clinch in the ‘Australian’ outback

Long-term love scene

Immediately, there was a crackle

A meeting of minds

2022 Annual Appeal

In 2022 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Mayatjara by Robert Fielding, a series of 24 photographs of Elders of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara community.

The artist and the doctor

Art, war, scandal

Hearts and craft

The long game

Of Burke, Wills ... and wills

Infatuation and (ill-fated) exploration

All the world's a stage

Joan Sutherland, Robert Helpmann and Raigh Roe

Tough & Tender Media Release

Photographs from internationally acclaimed artists Robert Mapplethorpe, Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, Collier Schorr and Chris Burden along with contemporary Australian artists, Rozalind Drummond and Warwick Baker will call the National Portrait Gallery home during our extraordinary winter exhibition Tough and Tender.

Annual Appeal

The Legend of Ruby and Archie

A bond in song

2020 Annual Appeal

In 2020 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Sally Robinson's remarkable portrait of author Tim Winton.

The soul surfer’s manifesto

Barrels, bliss and brotherhood

2021 Annual Appeal

In 2021 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Peter Brew-Bevan's portraits of athletes Turia Pitt, Leisel Jones OAM and Ellie Cole OAM.

Shifting the definition

Defiant commitment

Bangarra brothers: songman, storyteller, dancer

Creative kin

2023 Annual Appeal

In 2023 the Annual Appeal was focussed on a work by one of Australia's best loved and most successful portrait painters, Judy Cassab AO CBE, depicting model, entrepreneur and deportment icon, June Dally-Watkins OAM.

Honour board

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges and thanks all its supporters.

2013-14 Acquisition Fund

This 1910 portrait of Elizabeth Sarah (Lillie) Roberts by Tom Roberts was brought into the Gallery's collection with the assistance of the Acquisition Fund in 2013.

2012-13 Acquisition Fund

The Circle of Friends Acquisition Fund for 2012 was dedicated to purchasing a portrait of David Malouf by Rick Amor.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018 winner announced

Finalists have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of the Winner and Highly Commended for the National Photographic Portrait Prize since December. It is our pleasure to announce the Winner for 2018 is Lee Grant for her portrait titled Charlie and Highly Commended has been awarded to Filomena Rizzo for her portrait titled My Olivia.

Alienation

Segregated from their fellow humans in cellophane prisons, reference points are removed, so it is not certain whether these naked figures could be unwrapped, are about to be subsumed, or will forever be suspended in a plastic stasis.

2014-15 Acquisition Fund

Kristin Headlam's portrait of Chris Wallace-Crabbe was acquired with the support of the Circle of Friends in 2014.

Oz Punk

In 1976, without having been blooded on the Sydney or Melbourne pub circuit, The Saints recorded a single – ‘(I’m) Stranded’ – earning them the distinction of releasing a punk single before The Sex Pistols did.

Alex Frayne

An interview with the photographer.

Portrait Donors

Australian Love Stories

A major new exhibition celebrating love in all its guises. Opening 20 March 2021.

Tim Fairfax, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018

Melanie Faith Dove

I had been watching Agnes with intrigue, her face and profile were so mesmerizing. On our final day together I pulled her aside and convinced her that she had such an amazing face that I needed to get a photograph for myself. It was very spontaneous in that I decided quickly how it would best look and shot it in only two frames.

Krystal Seigerman

The photograph was a brief, candid moment, which unfolded into a portrait. Peter and I were in Silverton, NSW, chatting as our students explored the town. The weak afternoon light suddenly became dramatic and defined, so I asked Peter if I could take his portrait.

Jude Rae

Jude Rae’s high reputation rests on her austere, cerebral still lifes of gas canisters, electric jugs and jars, which she groups and rearranges for paintings that catch their difficult curves and reflections. Her self-portrait’s likewise thoughtfully composed.

Protest!

Rock’s raw potency made it the ideal medium for fomenting protest. The 1970s, 80s and onwards saw calls for social and environmental justice ring out through song.

Brenton McGeachie

An interview with the photographer.

Harriet Schwarzrock: spaces between movement and stillness

To celebrate the new exhibition Australian Love Stories, renowned Australian glass artist Harriet Schwarzrock has been commissioned to make a large-scale installation reflecting on the role the heart plays as our emotional centre.

Dancer

From letting loose in the loungeroom to enthralling audiences on stage, this exhibition celebrates dance and dancers.

Graeme Drendel

I like talking about Drendel’s pictures as if they expressed dreams of my own.

2015-17 Acquisition Fund

From 2015 to 2017 the Acquisition Fund was focussed on Reg Richardson AM by Mitch Cairns, a finalist in the Archibald Prize 2014, and a great example of minimalist portraiture.

Architecture

Natural light and human proportions – the design by Johnson Pilton Walker

Arianne McNaught

I think the most important thing in capturing candid shots is to never take the photo when people are expecting you to press the shutter. The more poignant moments are not the stock standard images of people looking at the camera smiling but after or before when they are really interacting with each other.

Welcome home, Captain Bligh

The National Portrait Gallery will, next Tuesday, unveil an exciting new acquisition of irrefutable importance to all Australians. Portrait of William Bligh, in master’s uniform c. 1776, attributed to John Webber, is one of the earliest portraits of the contentious, historical figure, and extends the Gallery’s remarkable collection of early colonial portraits.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

Images for media use will be available from 8 March 2018.

The 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize

Shea Kirk’s portrait of friend and fellow-artist Emma Armstrong-Porter has won the 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize.

L. Gordon Darling AC CMG

The Chairman, Board, Director and all the Staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Founding Patron, who died peacefully in Melbourne this morning. He was 94.

The 1850s to the 1880s

The restrained and cultivated facial hair fashions evident through the first decades of the 1800s were on the wane by the middle of the century, when hirsute faces became mainstream.

Memories

The second row of paintings recall stories relating to specific sites, experiences and activities.

The 1950s to the present day

Certain European leaders (needless to name) had the effect of making certain styles of facial hair decidedly undesirable in the years immediately after World War 2.

John McRae

An interview with the photographer.

Ngarranggarni

The third row of paintings come from Ngarranggarni (Dreaming).

NPPP 2012 learning resource

Exploring select works from the NPPP 2012. For secondary students.

NPPP 2009 exhibition essay

Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2009 Prize.

History

How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be

Rick Amor: 21 Portraits

Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.

Arcadia: Sound of the sea

One night in the spring of 1970 in an old house in Whale Beach, north of Sydney, John Witzig, Albe Falzon and David Elfick put together the first issue of Tracks, playing Neil Young’s album Harvest over and over again as they pasted up galleys of type.

Arianne McNaught

An interview with the photographer.

Ken Done

With a mum who was married to a tradie, you’d think it a fair chance that the baby Jesus would have grown up with a dog in the house.

Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits

Sarah Engledow looks at three decades of Nicholas Harding's portraiture.

Seduce, Amuse, Entertain

Michael Desmond, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2007 Prize.

Uncommon Australians

Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.

Some prime ministers

Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.

Kristin Headlam

Basil grew into a speckled beauty – a long-legged leaper and an exceptionally vocal dog, with a great register of sounds, ascending in shock value from a whimper to a growl to a bark to a yelp that’s a violation of the ears.

Fiona McMonagle

Fiona aims to create a dangerous situation with a flood of water on the paper, forcing each work to the point where it can fail, and then rescuing it. 

Lucy Culliton

Most well-regarded pictures of chickens show them dead. A reliable way to tell if a chicken in a painting is dead is to check if it’s hanging upside down, because unlike, say, cockatoos, chickens don’t practise inversion for enjoyment in life.

The Bare story

Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be

The more things change...

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.

NPPP 2016 exhibition essay

Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.

Everybody, look serious

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2014 Prize.

Less than six degrees of separation

Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.