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Uncommon Australians

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

The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush

Some years ago my colleague Andrea Wolk Rager and I spent several days in the darkened basement of a Rothschild Bank, inspecting every one of the nearly 700 autochromes created immediately before World War I by the youthful Lionel de Rothschild.

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.

The bright-eyed Mariner

Portraiture in a Bleak House

It may seem an odd thing to do at one’s leisure on a beautiful tropical island, but I spent much of my midwinter break a few weeks ago re-reading Bleak House.

Of beef in burgundy

Angus Trumble reveals the complex technical mastery behind a striking recent acquisition, Henry Bone’s enamel portrait of William Manning.

A reflection on conversation pieces

There is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, an English painting, datable on the basis of costume to about 1745, that has for many years exercised my imagination.

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

Wunderkind lost

Inga Walton on the brief but brilliant life of Hugh Ramsay.

Fugue in Yellow

Roger Benjamin explores the intriguing union of Lina Bryans and Alex Jelinek.

Australia’s great internationalists

Penelope Grist explores the United Nations stories in the Gallery’s collection.

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.

Unbuttoning uniforms

Sharon Peoples contemplates costumes and the construction of identity.

Costantini's convictions

Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.

You beauty

Joanna Gilmour explores the fact and fictions surrounding the legendary life of Irish-born dancer Lola Montez.

Money for Myth

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.