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Australian Love stories

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.

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.

Australian Love Stories

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

The actor, the artist, her life and her fantasies

Feeling sexy

Portrait Donors

The Popular Pet Show

This exhibition expresses the joy and warmth that many of us derive from our animal companions, and celebrates their trusting, unpretentious ways, with portraits of Australians and their furry, feathered and fluffy friends.

Pets of all types take over the National Portrait Gallery

It is not every day that a national gallery turns its walls over to the animal companions that bring unconditional love and joy to their owners but this summer we have opened the doors to 15 contemporary artists with very different ways of depicting our furry, feathered and scaled pets.

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.

Uncommon Australians

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

Idle Hours

Idle hours is an exhibition of luxurious beauty. Paintings, prints and drawings represent subjects in quiet moods and situations arranged according to the time of day they depict - reading, drawing, snoozing, bathing, sewing, gardening, sitting, looking, making love and spending tranquil time with companions. Works in the exhibition range from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present.

Lovingly observed

Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.

Studio

Studio: Australian Painters Photographed by R

Peter Brew-Bevan Portraits

In this exhibition Sydney based photographer Peter Brew-Bevan brings together an intimate collection of works that highlight his passion for the genre of portraiture over the last 10 years

hey, Betty (Portrait of Betty Churcher), 1990

Gift of the artist 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Dressing for dinner, 1992

Gift of the artist 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.