Search / tenille hands

Finalist, MDPA 2015

The 'Multi Exposed Hand'

22 January 2005

Photographer Jozef Vissel talks about his ‘Multi Exposed Hand’ portrait of Sydney Opera House architect Jørn Utzon.

Transience

More about In the flesh

These paintings by Juan Ford and sculptures by Sam Jinks evoke the impermanence of human life.

Two people at a bench covered in sheets of paper in a room with a wooden floor and a large brown couch

Kate Beynon

Artists and Collectives

Born in Hong Kong, Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Kate Beynon builds from the cultural legacy of her familial ancestry and experience to envision hybrid personas, identities, worlds and mythologies.

Angelica Mesiti

Artists and Collectives

Internationally renowned, Paris-based artist Angelica Mesiti creates video installations that are absorbing and profound experiences for audiences.

Davida Allen

Going around a gallery with a child, we point to a painting of a dog and brightly ask ‘What’s that?’ If they don’t say ‘A dog’, we tell them that’s what it is. We don’t say it’s a shape inscribed by an artist that’s popularly understood to signify a dog. That’d only serve to foster a smarty-pants.

William Robinson

Archived media releases 2013

Unique in the world, perhaps, is a bronze sculpture that fuses the age-old human portrait bronze tradition, and the later genre of the bronze pug figurine: that’d be William Robinson’s Self-portrait with pug.

Jaq Grantford

Vox pops

A self-portrait from a different time, feels like a different time, even though it's only a couple of years ago or one and a half years, if that, and it was my commentary on COVID and how I was feeling about it at the time.

Angus Trumble National Portrait Gallery Director

National Portrait Gallery Director announced

20 December 2013

The National Portrait Gallery welcomes Angus Trumble

The Amazing Face: a 14-day Dive into Portraiture

Archived media releases 2020

The National Portrait Gallery is offering a free online class on the art of portraiture from April 28.

Visiting with a school group

Access support for students.

Katherine Bennett

Finalist interviews

The lady in the centre of this photograph is my partner's Granny. So we are almost directly related, and here, as with all photographic work. I am in a state of exchange though I think only directly, with one of the women!

Atul Bhalla

by Khavita Singh

Artist essays

Atul Bhalla was born in 1964 in New Delhi. He frequently combines photography, installation, sculpture, video, painting and performance to question the human relationship with the natural and constructed environment.

Visiting at a quiet time

Access support for visitors with sensory sensitivities or autism.

Relaxed mornings

Access support for a visiting the Gallery before the general 10:00am opening time.

The 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize

16 June 2023

Media

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

Alwar Balasubramaniam

by Zehra Jumabhoy

Artist essays

Born in 1971 in Tamil Nadu, Southern India, Alwar Balasubramaniam's sculptures, prints and installations challenge our perceptions while creating forms for the invisible and the intangible.

Goollabal (Rainbow Serpent), 2018 by Shirley Purdie

Memories

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

Visiting the National Portrait Gallery

Archived media releases 2016

Access support for a general visit to the Gallery.

Provocative talks on Saturdays in September

29 August 2016

Join The Saturday Paper’s chief political correspondent, Karen Middleton, for A Month of Saturdays – afternoon conversations bringing current affairs experts to the Gallery for engaging, real-time discussions about the topics that matter.

Kristin Headlam

NPPP 2020 exhibition essay

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.

Writing on the Wall, 2019 Dr Christian Thompson AO

To arrive at hope

Penelope Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2020 Prize.

Nicholas Harding

Over the years the young Nicholas Harding got his hands on various mice and guinea pigs, but they served mainly to illustrate the concept of mortality.

Graeme Drendel

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

Robyn Sweaney

Robyn's parents had two terriers, Wuff and Snuff. In spite of Snuff’s ominous name and a couple of close shaves – once, he jumped out of a moving car, and another time, on a long road trip, he was accidentally left behind at a petrol station – he outlived Wuff.

NPPP 2016 exhibition essay

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

Anna Culliton

NPPP 2017 exhibition essay

Anna Culliton never had a colouring-in book when she was little. Her parents –Tony, a filmmaker, and Stephanie, a painter – wouldn’t let her have one. Instead, they insisted on her drawing her own pictures to colour-in.

Trevor Jamieson, 2016 by Brett Canet-Gibson

The more things change...

NPPP 2014 exhibition essay

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

The Art Lovers - Megan, 2013 by Gary Grealy

Everybody, look serious

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

Inner Worlds and psychoanalysis

Lecture, 4 June 2011

Inner Worlds evokes a broad view of psychology as a discipline. However, the specific interests of the practitioners whose portraits are included in the exhibition incorporate specialist areas including psychoanalysis.

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.

Some prime ministers

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

Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits

Exhibition essay