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Charmed by the Rose

Anthony Browell reminisces about meeting Rose Lindsay, the wife of Australian artist Norman Lindsay.

The champs

Two lively portrait photographs reflect the agility of their subjects: world champion Australian sportsmen Lionel Rose and Anthony Mundine.

In focus

Brook Andrew, Marcia Langton and Anthony Mundine.

Lovers of light

Dr Sarah Engledow traces the significant links between Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo and Evelyn Chapman through their portraits.

Four from the 30s

Australia's tradition of sculpted portraits stretches back to the early decades of the nineteenth century and continues to sustain a group of dedicated sculptors.

Public hanging

As a convict Thomas Bock was required to sketch executed murders for science; as a free man, fashionable society portraits.

The bright-eyed Mariner

When birds no longer sing

Emma Kindred looks at the career of Joan Ross, whose work subverts colonial imagery and its legacy with the clash of fluorescent yellow.

Poison pen

Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

Fits of delicacy and despair

Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.

Black and white history

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

The art of conciliation

Gareth Knapman explores the politics and opportunism behind the portraits of Tasmania’s Black War.

Sketches and sermons

Jessica Smith looks at the 'fetching' portrait of Tasmania's first Anglican Bishop, Francis Russell Nixon by George Richmond

Powerful energy

Dr Christopher Chapman explores the symbolism in the portrait commission of Marcia Langton by Brook Andrew.

An Intimate Portrait of an Australian Artist in 1930

Lauren Dalla examines the life of Australian painter Roy de Maistre and his portrait by Jean Shepeard.

Reflection

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

Shifting pixels

In 2007 the National Portrait Gallery produced its first online exhibition featuring the animated self portraits created by some of Australia’s most innovative visual artists and animators.

A man of superior attainments

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

Every flap, fold and bulge

Costantini's convictions

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

Augustus serendipitous

The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825. 

Big it up

Former National Portrait Gallery Curator Magda Keaney was a member of the selection panel of the Schwepes Photographic Portrait Prize 2004 at the National Portrait Gallery London.

Material culture

The Rajah Quilt’s narrative promptings are as intriguing as the textile is intricate.

The shipwright's arms

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of convict-turned-artist William Buelow Gould.

Bloodlines

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

Sophisticated and glamorous

Michael Riley’s early portraits by Amanda Rowell.

Exposed: Voyeurism Surveillance and the camera since 1870

The Tate/SFMOMA exhibition Exposed examined the role of photography in voyeurism and how it challenges ideas of privacy and propriety.

Presence and absence

The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.

Hyperversity

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the larger-than-life Australian performance artist, Leigh Bowery.

Unknown drawer

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

Alternative virtue

Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.

Fine and dandy

Whether the result of misadventure or misdemeanour, many accomplished artists were transported to Australia where they ultimately left a positive mark on the history of art in this country.

Good, bad and the ugly

Michael Desmond explores what makes a portrait subject significant.

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

Dupain detective

Johanna McMahon revels in history and mystery in pursuit of a suite of unknown portrait subjects.

Kiwi magpie

Penelope Grist finds inspiration in pioneering New Zealand artist, Frances Hodgkins.

Take thy face hence

Joanna Gilmour travels through time to explore the National Portrait Gallery London’s masterpieces in Shakespeare to Winehouse.

20 20

Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

More cash than dash

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

In good company

Jean Appleton’s 1965 self portrait makes a fine addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s collection writes Joanna Gilmour.

Little women

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

Getting bare

How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.

Off her own bat

Joanna Gilmour profiles Violet Teague, whose sophisticated works hid her originality and non-conformity in plain sight.

Naked nostalgia

Penelope Grist reminisces about the halcyon days of a print icon, before the infusion of the internet’s shades of grey.

Prima facie

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