The Hon. B.S. Bird was delegate from Tasmania at the Constitutional Convention, Sydney, 1891.
1 portrait in the collection
Ada Bird Petyarre (c. 1930–2009), painter and printmaker, was an Anmatyerre woman from the Northern Territory, and one of seven sisters who all became notable artists.
1 portrait in the collection
Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE (1915–2009), aviatrix, decided she wanted to be a pilot when, at age eight, she saw a plane make an emergency landing on a beach near her home.
2 portraits in the collection
Recorded 1977
Recorded 1977
Gift of Leo Christie 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
Joanna Gilmour explores the extraordinary life of Australian female aviator Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Two professionals; Australian surfer Layne Beachley and photographer Petrina Hicks, combine their strengths to achieve a remarkable portrait.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2001
This issue features Vanity Fair, Nancy Bird Walton, William Barak, Sidney Kidman, Benjamin Duterrau's portraits of the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania, and more.
Sarah Engledow plays wingman to Leila Jeffreys.
John Gould (1804–1881) is known as the ‘father of Australian ornithology’ for his Birds of Australia, published in seven volumes between 1840 and 1848.
1 portrait in the collection
George French Angas (1822-1886) was an artist and shell collector, who published many illustrations of the plants, native animals and peoples of the southern hemisphere.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2021
Purchased 2021
The winner of our Art Handlers' Award receives $1000 and free return transport for their photograph, courtesy of International Art Services.
Purchased 1999
Purchased with funds provided by Joan Connery OAM 2020
Curator, Sarah Engledow, introduces the artists and the animals in The Popular Pet Show.
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.
The artist's diary profiles six decades of Cassab's work, from the early portrait commissions of the 1950s to later paintings that have helped confirm her eminent place in the canon of Australian portraiture.
John Lewin was Australia's first free-settler professional artist. He arrived in Sydney in 1800, intervention from influential patrons having secured him the assurance of rations.
1 portrait in the collection
Jacki Weaver AO (b. 1947), actor, was a household name in Australia for 40 years before rising to international prominence.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Geoff Cousins AM 2007
Gary Heery, photographer, was born in Sydney, where he studied sociology and psychology at the University of New South Wales.
1 portrait in the collection
The first row of paintings depict stories relating to kinship, introducing significant women relatives.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2018
Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom (1886–1970) manufacturer, philanthropist and zoo trustee, grew up with his eight siblings in Waterloo, Sydney, after the family left the failed family farm in Coonamble, New South Wales.
3 portraits in the collection
Ross Edwards (b. 1943), composer, became determined upon a life of composition as a child.
1 portrait in the collection
Celebrating sixty years of Australia’s most exceptional women as they appeared in Vogue Australia, the National Portrait Gallery is proud to announce an exhibition in collaboration with this pre-eminent fashion title.
Gabrielle ‘Gaby’ Kennard OAM (b. 1944) was the first Australian woman to fly solo around the world.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.
The design concepts behind the new National Portrait Gallery building in Canberra.
This exhibition features new works from ten women artists reinterpreting and reimagining elements of Australian history, enriching the contemporary narrative around Australia’s history and biography, reflecting the tradition of storytelling in our country.
Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2018
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.
This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of self-portraits in Australia, from the colonial period to the present
Death masks, post-mortem drawings and other spooky and disquieting portraits... Come and see how portraits of infamous Australians were used in the 19th century.
Over the last five years the National Portrait Gallery has developed a collection of portrait photographs that reflects both the strength and diversity of Australian achievement as well as the talents of our photographers.
Celebrate the Gallery’s 20th birthday summer with Electric! Portraits that pop! The collection exhibition features a mix of bright, bold and colourful paintings, prints and photographs, and buoyant video portraits.
Christopher Chapman delights in the intimacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's photography
Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.
The exhibition Depth of Field displays a selection of portrait photographs that reflect the strength and diversity of Australian achievement.
![[Self-portrait], 1996](/files/5/e/2/e/i2030-slq.jpg "[Self-portrait], 1996")
The exhibition Reveries: Photography and mortality is a powerful display which brings together images that depict the last phase of people's lives.
Fiona aims to create a dangerous situation with a flood of water on the paper, forcing each work to the point where it can fail, and then rescuing it.
Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.
Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.
Chris O'Doherty, also known as Reg Mombassa, is best-known for his Mambo imagery but he also paints a lot of self portraits.
Joanna Gilmour describes how artist Sam Leach works on a small scale to grand effect.
Penny Grist on motivation, method and melancholy in the portraiture of Darren McDonald.
An exploration of national identity in the Canadian context drawn from the symposium Face to Face at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2004.
Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.
Sarah Engledow describes the fall-out once Brett Whiteley stuck Patrick White’s list of his loves and hates onto his great portrait of the writer.
Angus Trumble reflects on the force of nature that was Helena Rubinstein.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of convict-turned-artist William Buelow Gould.
Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.
Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.
