Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 1999
Norman Gunston (1973-1993) was a fictional television character, conceived by writer Wendy Skelcher and developed by actor Garry McDonald.
1 portrait in the collection
Darren McDonald gained his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) degree from RMIT in 2000, having completed an associate diploma in painting at the same institution.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Studio: Australian Painters Photographed by R. Ian Lloyd presents 61 of some of Australia’s most respected and significant painters working in the studio environment.
The wild balancing act of McDonald’s home décor (is that there as a joke? where do I actually sit down? is this ironic or what? what a lovely photo of Darren and Robin in Europe!) is reflected in his own personality.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Penny Grist on motivation, method and melancholy in the portraiture of Darren McDonald.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by James Bain AM and Janette Bain 2010
Barry Gibb (b. 1946) and twins Robin (b. 1949) and Maurice Gibb (1949-2003), were the brothers comprising the band The Bee Gees.
1 portrait in the collection
Alfred Barry (1826-1910), Anglican bishop of Sydney and primate of the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania, was educated at King’s College, London and at Cambridge.
2 portraits in the collection
The exhibition begins with Barry's childhood in Camberwell, Melbourne and chronicles his days as a struggling actor in Australia and England, his creation of characters including Barry McKenzie, Dame Edna Everage, Sandy Stone and Sir Les Patterson
Barry Tuckwell AC OBE (1931-2020), horn soloist, conductor, teacher and author spent his early years in Melbourne, where he learned a variety of instruments including piano and violin.
1 portrait in the collection
Barry Walsh (b. 1951) is a painter, photographer and printmaker who has studied in Italy and France and has exhibited since the early '80s in Europe as well as Australia.
1 portrait in the collection
Barry Jones AO (b. 1932) is a politician, lawyer and writer. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and worked as a public servant and high school teacher before rising to fame as Australia's Quiz champion from 1960 to 1968.
1 portrait in the collection
Barry Humphries AC CBE (b. 1934), actor, writer and artist, is the world’s all-time most successful solo theatrical performer.
12 portraits in the collection
Barry Sullivan (1821-1891), English actor, performed on the Melbourne stage between 1862 and 1866.
1 portrait in the collection
Recorded 1981
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Margaret Olley Art Trust 2003
Barry York charts the course from childhood request to autographed celebrity portrait anthology.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds donated by Patrick Corrigan 2000
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC 1998
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Timothy Fairfax AC 2012
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of David Tuckwell 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Marlene McCarthy 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2000
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rabbi John Levi AC 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
The biographical exhibition of Barry Humphries was the first display of its kind at the National Portrait Gallery.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Helga Leunig 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned 2007
Finalist, MDPA 2013
This issue features Jude Rae, Arthur Boyd, Darren McDonald, John Singer Sargent, Tom Wills the 'inventor' of Australian Rules Football and more.
The exhibition includes such striking works as Portrait of Fred Williams, and Barry Humphries in the character of Edna Everage, the enigmatic Portrait of Hal Hattam, a group of revealing self portraits including the mysterious Inside and Outside, as well as endearing portraits of the artist's children.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard Wherrett 1998
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
Bruce Beresford (b. 1940), director, made his first film while an undergraduate at the University of Sydney in the early 1960s.
2 portraits in the collection
John Passmore (1904-1984), painter, studied with Julian Ashton in Sydney between the ages of fourteen and twenty-nine, and took some instruction from George Lambert.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2010
This issue of Portrait Magazine features articles about the NPG's Barry Humphries exhibition and Polly Borland's portrait of The Queen.
Ian Lloyd was born in Canada and studied photography at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and Brooks Institute in California.
5 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Frank Watters OAM 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Kathleen Barry 2009
David Strachan (1919–1970), painter and printmaker, was educated at Geelong Grammar School and then studied art at the Slade School in London.
2 portraits in the collection
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.
John Mawurndjul (b. 1952) is a Kuningkju-speaking man who lives near Maningrida, one of the Northern Territory's oldest and best-equipped art centres.
2 portraits in the collection
Gloria Tamerre Petyarre (b. 1945), an Anmatyerre woman from the Atnangkere country, near Alice Springs, is one of Australia's most acclaimed Indigenous painters.
2 portraits in the collection
Esther Erlich, a Melbourne-based painter, has been exhibiting since the early 1980s, often with the Libby Edwards Galleries in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and the Barry Newton Gallery in Adelaide.
3 portraits in the collection
The National Photographic Portrait Prize 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.
From 1967 until 1981 Matthew Perceval lived and painted in France and during those years produced a large body of portrait paintings.
Barbara Tribe was born in Sydney, where she enrolled at East Sydney Technical College at the age of fifteen.
4 portraits in the collection
Geoffrey Legge (b. 1935) and Frank Watters (1934-2020) have run Watters Gallery in Darlinghurst since 1964.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2002
Miranda Otto (b. 1967), actress, is the daughter of the prominent Australian actor Barry Otto.
3 portraits in the collection
Fiona Lowry is a Sydney-based artist. Having held her first solo exhibition in 2002, she exhibited at Sydney’s Gallery Barry Keldoulis from 2004 to 2010; from 2010 she was also represented by Hugo Michell in Adelaide, and she is currently handled by Martin Browne Contemporary in Sydney.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Louise Hearman (b. 1963), graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1984 and has built her visual arts career over the decades since.
1 portrait in the collection
Geoffrey Legge (b. 1935) and Frank Watters (1934–2020) ran Watters Gallery in Darlinghurst from 1964 to 2018.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
Andrew Quilty left school after completing Year 10 in 1999, and went to study photography at TAFE, graduating in 2004.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Liibus family 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Commissioned with funds provided by Peter Weiss AO 2018
Margaret Olley AC (1923-2011), painter, studied art at East Sydney Technical College and the Grande Chaumière in Paris.
6 portraits in the collection
Lewis Morley has a great eye for a shot and a sharp ear for a pun
Polly Borland: Australians, is an exhibition of 54 new portraits of significant Australians who have made a contribution to British life and who have largely made their home or based their professional life in the UK
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Kate Grenville completed an arts degree at the University of Sydney and worked as a film editor before spending several years in the UK and Europe, where she began to write.
2 portraits in the collection
Lewis Morley established his reputation as one of the key British photographers of the 1960s and his image of a nude Christine Keeler straddling an Arne Jacobsen chair has become an icon of the popular culture.
50 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Thea Proctor (1879-1966), artist and stylesetter, trained at the Julian Ashton School before leaving Australia for London in 1903.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Reg Livermore AO (b. 1938), stage and television entertainer, began performing as a teenager, hiring local venues to mount his own pantomimes, including Snow White at the Mosman Town Hall in 1955.
2 portraits in the collection
Richard Tognetti ao (b. 1965), violinist, conductor and composer, trained with William Primrose in Wollongong and Alice Waten in Sydney before undertaking further studies with Igor Ozim in Switzerland.
2 portraits in the collection
Magda Keaney speaks with Lewis Morley about his photographic career and the major retrospective of his work on display at the NPG.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Peter Weiss AO 2018
Sir Edward Eyre Williams (1813–1880), judge and barrister, arrived in Port Phillip in 1842 having been admitted to the Bar in London nine years earlier.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Bequest of Nick Enright AM 2004
David Dridan (b. 1932), artist, studied at the South Australian School of Art and later at East Sydney Technical College.
1 portrait in the collection
Robert Whitaker, English photographer, spent three years in Melbourne in the early 1960s, becoming friends with Mirka and Georges Mora, Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer, the Heide crowd and Martin Sharp and Richard Neville.
1 portrait in the collection
Joan Sutherland, Robert Helpmann and Raigh Roe
In 1988 philanthropists Gordon and Marilyn Darling decided to make an Australian portrait gallery a reality, overseeing the development of the 1992 touring exhibition Uncommon Australians.
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.
Thomas Foster Chuck (1826-1898), photographer and entrepreneur, was born in London and arrived in Victoria in 1861.
4 portraits in the collection
In its second year at the National Portrait Gallery, and for the first time touring to other venues, the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 continues to present surprising perspectives on the nature of contemporary portrait photography.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of David Dridan OAM 2017
Carl Cooper (1912-1966), ceramic decorator, contracted poliomyelitis in his twenties.
1 portrait in the collection
The National Portrait Gallery recently announced the finalists for the Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award 2013.
The National Portrait Gallery would like to congratulate the forty finalists for the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2019.
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned 2010
This exhibition offers a comprehensive display of Clifton Pugh's portraits revealing his development and growth from tonal paintings to a unique style that was in demand from politicians, artists, academics and Australian personalities.
The world of Thea Proctor was the National Portrait Gallery's second exhibition to follow the life of a single person, following Rarely Everage: The lives of Barry Humphries.
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery Study Collection, Canberra
Gift of John Molony 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Martin Sharp fulfils the Pop art idiom of merging art and life.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers celebrates the support given to the Gallery by Gordon and Marilyn Darling.
The exhibition will include works of art from the NPG Canberra's permanent collection with some inward loans and aims to highlight the achievements of notable Australians.
Australia has become recognised for the range and talent of its musicians, composers, conductors and celebrities in general associated with the music industry
Rennie Ellis: Aussies All is a celebration of the life and work of the late Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.
This exhibition showcases portraits acquired through the generosity of the National Portrait Gallery’s Founding Patrons, L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC.
Drawn from some of the many donations made to the Gallery's collection, the exhibition Portraits for Posterity pays homage both to the remarkable (and varied) group of Australians who are portrayed in the portraits and the generosity of the many donors who have presented them to the Gallery.
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.
The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.
Joanna Gilmore delights in the affecting drawings of Mathew Lynn.
Andrew Sayers feels the warmth in the paintings Matthew Perceval made while the sun shone in southern France.
Drawn from the Gallery's collection, the exhibition Face the Music explores the remarkable talents and achievements of Australian musicians, composers, conductors and celebrities associated with the music industry.
Inspiring Australians tell their own stories in a unique new gallery audio tour, developed in collaboration with the National Library of Australia.
A new painting by Jiawei Shen captures the vision and resolve of the Gallery's founder, L. Gordon Darling AC CMG.
Bon Scott and Angus Young photographed by Rennie Ellis are part of a display celebrating summer and images of the shirtless male.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of one of Melbourne's early socialites, Jessie Eyre Williams.
In 2006 the National Portrait Gallery acquired a splendid portrait of Victoria's first governor, Lieutenant Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe by Thomas Woolner.
John Zubrzycki meets Australian paint pioneer Jim Cobb.
Andrew Sayers outlines the highlights of the National Portrait Gallery's display of portrait sculpture.
David Gist steps beyond the public relations veneer of Australia’s official Vietnam War portrait photographs.
Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.
The exhibition Portraits for Posterity celebrates gifts to the Gallery, of purchases made with donated funds, and testifies to the generosity and community spirit of Australians.
The Kylie exhibition celebrated the significant achievements of one of Australia's most internationally recognisable faces and gave the general public a rare glimpse into her glamorous life.
Christopher Chapman looks at influences and insight in the formative years of Arthur Boyd.
Projecting the splendour of the empire, and the resolve of its subjects, the bust of William Birdwood keeps a stiff upper lip in the National Portrait Gallery.
Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.
In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.
Stephen Phillips talks to neurosurgeon Charlie Teo about his practice, perspectives and the anatomy of hope.
Jane Raffan asks do clothes make the portrait, and can the same work with a new title fetch a better price?
Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.
Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.
How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be
Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.
Traudi Allen discovers sensitivity, humour and fine draughtsmanship in the portraiture of John Perceval.
Works by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan bring the desert, the misty seashore and the hot Monaro plains to exhibition Open Air: Portraits in the landscape.
Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.
Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.
Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.
One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.
