© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
Australian Love stories
Family, friends, fanatics and foes (and everything in between!)
Previous exhibition, 2021
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.
Starstruck
Australian Movie Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2017
Striking, beautiful portraiture comes out of the most thoroughly documented creative process there is – filmmaking. In a ground-breaking collaboration the National Portrait Gallery and National Film and Sound Archive invite you into this captivating realm between real and fictional worlds.
Arthur Boyd Portraits
Previous exhibition, 1999
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
Headspace 7
Me and My Place
Previous exhibition, 2006
Headspace 7: Me and My Place, the seventh in the National Portrait Gallery's series of student exhibitions, will be presented at Commonwealth Place. Me and My Place is the curatorial theme for the 2006 exhibition.
George Foxhill
Self Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2006
Foxhill's portraits are more concerned with describing an emotional and psychological state than the surface topography of the human face.
Intimate Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2002
Intimate Portraits is an exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints that explore the less public side of portraiture
Headspace 3
Being Me
Previous exhibition, 2002
The self-portrait enables students to explore emerging and changing aspects of their own identity, their sense of self, their place in the world, their experience of being human
Mysterious eyes
Arthur Boyd portraits from 1945
Previous exhibition, 2016
Boyd’s self-portrait at age 25 is joined by his equally emotive portraits of those around him.
The World of Thea Proctor
Previous exhibition, 2005
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
Thousand Mile Stare
Portrait photography by John Elliott
Previous exhibition, 2004
Thousand mile stare provides a unique portrait of people of rural Australia
Masters of Fare
Chefs, winemakers, providores
Previous exhibition, 2004
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.
Nicholas Harding
28 Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2017
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.
Recognition
Percy Leason's Aboriginal Portraits
Previous exhibition, 1999
Originally conceived as an anthropological record, Percy Leason’s powerful 1934 portraits of Victorian Aboriginal people are today considered to be a highlight of 20th century Australian portraiture
Collection: Icons
Volume One
Previous exhibition, 2018
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.
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022
Previous exhibition, 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.
Primed
Some Prime Ministers
Previous exhibition, 2019
Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.