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The Good Doctor

Dr Sarah Engledow describes the achievements of internationally renowned burns and trauma surgeon Professor Fiona Wood.

All there in black and white

The National Portrait Gallery acquired a beguiling silhouette group portrait by Samuel Metford, an English artist who spent periods of his working life in America.

Portrait 18

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Daddy Cool, HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, the exhibition Glossy 2, Aldo Giurgola, Fiona Wood and more.

Encounter at Kintore

Photographer Hari Ho describes the creation of his portrait of Papunya Tula artist Makinti Napanangka.

Bloodlines

Michelle Fracaro describes Lionel Lindsay's woodcut The Jester (self-portrait).

Portrait 68

Rebecca Ray on Robert Fielding’s Mayatjara series, Jennifer Higgie on Alice Neel, Elspeth Pitt chats with Yvette Coppersmith, Vincent Fantauzzo on virtual sittings with Hugh Jackman and more.

Hottie's Snifter to port

Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.

Everything, everyqueer, all at once

Bradley Vincent considers Samuel Hodge’s use of the archive to create a queer vernacular of portraiture.

Little treasures

The acquisition of the ivory miniatures of Mortimer and Mrs Lewis.

Being Cate

A moving portrait of Cate Blanchett unfolds as an inspired pairing of medium and subject.

Reflection

British novelist and poet, Michael Rosen, weaves a tale about his early encounters with creativity and the self-portrait of a childhood friend.

Black tie or wombat: How formal should I go?

Michael Desmond discusses the portrait of Senator Neville Bonner by Robert Campbell Jnr.

Drawing inspiration

Christopher Chapman absorbs the gentle touch of Don Bachardy’s portraiture.

Chance encounter

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of one of Melbourne's early socialites, Jessie Eyre Williams.

The catechist and the cricketer

Stephen Valambras Graham traverses the intriguing socio-political terrain behind two iconic First Nations portraits of the 1850s.

Why do painted portraits still matter?

Lecture by Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, given at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra on 28 April 2006.

Self-effacing

Michael Wardell samples the fare in the University of Queensland National Self-portrait Prize.

More cash than dash

Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.

Modern Australian Women

Close contemporaries, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith were frequently sources of inspiration and irritation to each other. 

The fat of the land

Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’. 

Nocturnal animals

Joanna Gilmour explores the enticing urban shadows cast by artists Martin Lewis and Edward Hopper.

Two pair

Thrown together

Shipmates for years, James Cook and Joseph Banks each kept a journal but neither man shed light on their relationship.

Essential portraiture

Michael Desmond in conversation with University of Houston professor of philosophy Cynthia Freeland.

Black and white history

English artist Benjamin Duterrau took up the cause of the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania with his detailed and sympathetic renderings.

Way of the body

Christopher Chapman reveals the intersection of iconoclastic Japanese figures Yukio Mishima and Tamotsu Yato.

A man of superior attainments

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of a colonial portrait artist, writer and rogue Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

No Laughing Matter

The biographical exhibition of Barry Humphries was the first display of its kind at the National Portrait Gallery.

In bloom

Susi Muddiman delights in Michael Zavros’ stunning portrait of the honourable Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO.

Small worlds

Bess Norriss Tait created miniature watercolour portraits full of character and life.

Vanity fair

Ashleigh Wadman rediscovers the Australian characters represented with a kindly touch by the British portrait artist Leslie Ward for the society magazine Vanity Fair.

Unknown drawer

Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.

Abstraction and figuration

James Angus discusses his major sculpture commission Geo Face Distributor with Christopher Chapman.

The importance of being bearded

Joanna Gilmour discovers that the beards of the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills were as epic as their expedition to traverse Australia from south to north.

Splendid, many-splendoured

Sandra Bruce gazes on love and the portrait through Australian Love Stories’ multi-faceted prism.

High & Bligh

Joanna Gilmour explores the 1790 portrait of William Bligh by Robert Dodd.

Painting them gently

Penny Grist on motivation, method and melancholy in the portraiture of Darren McDonald.

Getting a head

Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.

The portrait writ large

Karen Vickery on Chang the Chinese giant in Australia.

Heartfelt

The portrait of Janet and Horace Keats with the spirit of the poet Christopher Brennan is brought to life by artist Dora Toovey.

Starry knight

Aircraft designer, pilot and entrepreneur, Sir Lawrence Wackett rejoins friends and colleagues on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.

The family scene

Traudi Allen discovers sensitivity, humour and fine draughtsmanship in the portraiture of John Perceval.

The real Thea

Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.

Little women

Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.

A feast of friends

John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.

A real Pratt

The death of a gentlewoman is shrouded in mystery, a well-liked governor finds love after sorrow, and two upright men become entangled in the historical record.

Prima facie

Sarah Engledow casts a judicious eye over portraits in the Victorian Bar’s Peter O’Callaghan QC Portrait Gallery.

Petal to the mettle

Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.

The silent partner

One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.