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Carol Spencer AM (b. 1943), known as Carlotta, is a cabaret performer, television personality and LGBTIQ+ advocate.

1 portrait in the collection

Carlotta, Kings Cross (Les Girls), 1970-1971

Rennie Ellis

Purchased 2006

Carol Jerrems

Carol Jerrems (1949–1980) was a photographer known for her intimate portraits of friends, lovers and others occupying the progressive social and creative circles in which she moved.

9 portraits in the collection

Carol McGregor

Contributing artists

Born: 1961, Hastings, New Zealand
Works: Brisbane

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Carol Ruff, 1998

Greg Weight

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Carol Jerrems, 1973

Henry Talbot

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2015

Portrait of Anne Summers, 1974

Purchased 2012

Portrait of Anne Summers, 1974

Purchased 2012

Portrait of Anne Summers, 1974

Purchased 2012

Portrait of Anne Summers, 1974

Purchased 2012

Portrait of Anne Summers, 1974

Purchased 2012

Portrait of Anne Summers, 1974

Purchased 2012

Hermannsburg Potters, 1999

Greg Weight

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Horace Spencer Wills and Cedric Spencer Wills

Horace Spencer Wills and Cedric Spencer Wills, c. 1859

Portrait, 1/2 plate ambrotype with applied colour in a double elliptical brass matt inside a leather case (without lid)

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Horatio Spencer Wills, c. 1870

Wilmot & Key

Portrait, carte de visite photograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Horatio Spencer Wills, c. 1855

Portrait, 1/6 plate daguerreotype with applied colour in a brass matt in leather case

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Emily Spencer Wills, c. 1855

Portrait, 1/6 plate daguerreotype with applied colour in al brass matt (without original leather case)

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Egbert Spencer Wills, c. 1870

Wilmot & Key

Portrait, carte de visite photograph, hand coloured on card

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The Mirror, 2016

by Spencer and Lloyd Harvey

Image

Egbert S. Wills

Emily Spencer Wills (1842–1925), Cedric Spencer Wills (1844–1914), Horace Spencer Wills (1847–1928), and Egbert Spencer Wills (1849–1931) the second, third, fourth, and fifth children of Horatio Wills and his wife Elizabeth, were all born at Lexington, spending their childhoods there and at Bellevue, the property acquired by Horatio Wills near Geelong in 1852.

1 portrait in the collection

Cedric S. Wills

1 portrait in the collection

Emily S. Wills

1 portrait in the collection

Horace S. Wills

Photography and mortality

1 portrait in the collection

The Last Picture Show (Lewis Morley and Henry Talbot)

Reveries

Previous exhibition, 2007

Featuring works by Australian and New Zealand photographers from the late 1970s up to the present day Reveries focuses on images made in the presence of or consciousness of death.

Contributing artists

Find out more from each of the artists reinterpreting and reimagining elements of Australian history.

The Skin I'm In II, 2016

by Brian Cassey

Image

Roger Scott

Previous exhibition, 2016

Roger Scott (b. 1944) is a freelance documentary photographer known in particular for his images of protests and rallies held in Sydney in the 1970s.

2 portraits in the collection

Tough & Tender

Art by Warwick Baker, Chris Burden, Larry Clark, Rozalind Drummond, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe and Collier Schorr explores personal relations, individual expression and fluid identity.

Lady Eliza Lucy Grey

Eliza Lucy Spencer (c. 1819-1898) was the daughter of the Government Resident at Albany, who was succeeded by George Grey.

1 portrait in the collection

Athol Shmith, 1985

Michel Lawrence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Horatio S. Wills

Horatio Spencer Howe Wills (1811–1861), pastoralist, politician and newspaper proprietor, was born in Sydney, several months after the death of his father, Edward Spencer Wills, a merchant and shipowner who'd arrived in New South Wales under a life sentence for highway robbery in 1799.

2 portraits in the collection

Russell Crowe, 2001 (printed 2004)

Karin Catt

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

Edward John Eyre, 1867

Julia Margaret Cameron

Presented by Sir Roy Strong and the late Dr Julia Trevelyan Oman in memory of their friendship with Gordon Darling and Marilyn Darling 2006

Vali Myers, 2001

Eva Collins

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003

Nothing black and white about the Greys

It's Complicated

Marriage: a prolonged disaster

Charles Dickens

Daniel Maclise

Image

Max Meldrum, c. 1937

Max Dupain OBE

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003

Sir George Grey, c. 1845

Theresa Walker

Portrait, cast wax

Purchased 1999

The crime writer Shane Maloney, 2004

Rick Amor

Portrait, oil on canvas

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2010
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Russell Crowe

Previous exhibition, 2011

Russell Crowe (b. 1964), actor, was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He moved at the age of four to Australia, where his parents worked as caterers on TV and movie sets.

2 portraits in the collection

Inner Worlds

Portraits and Psychology

Portraits of Australia’s pioneering psychologists and artworks by artists fascinated by the subconscious mind.

Collette Dinnigan, 2005

Ingvar Kenne

Previous exhibition, 2006

Gift of the artist 2006

Rennie Ellis

Aussies All

Rennie Ellis: Aussies All is a celebration of the life and work of the late Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.

Angela Belgiorno-Zegna, 2001 by Salvatore Zofrea

Intimate Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2002

Intimate Portraits is an exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints that explore the less public side of portraiture

Collette Dinnigan AO

Portrait, inkjet print on paper

Collette Dinnigan AO (b. 1965), designer and company director, was born in South Africa and settled in Australia in 1985 after a period in New Zealand, where she studied fashion design at the Wellington Polytechnic.

1 portrait in the collection

Elizabeth Blackburn, 2011

Hugh Hamilton

Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2011

Michele Aboud

Michele Aboud, commercial, fashion and portrait photographer, is a graduate of the Photographic College of London and UCLA.

1 portrait in the collection

Cate Blanchett AC

Cate Blanchett AC (b. 1969), actor and humanitarian, graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992, joined the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) and soon received the Sydney Theatre Critics' Circle award for Best Newcomer for Kafka Dances (1993).

4 portraits in the collection

Col Joye AM

Col Joye AM (b.1938) (Colin Jacobsen), entertainer and impresario, was the first Australian pop performer to reach number 1 on the local charts.

1 portrait in the collection

Vali Myers

Photographic Portraiture in Australia

Vali Myers (1930-2003) artist, vagabond and agitator, was born near Box Hill and moved to Melbourne at the age of eleven.

1 portrait in the collection

Mirror With A Memory

Previous exhibition, 2000

This is the first major exhibition to examine photographic portraiture in Australia, from its beginnings in the early 1840s to the present day

Icons Syndicate

Lists alphabetically

Honour board

Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO
Featuring a favourite painting, Fred Williams ‘Wild Dog Creek’ 1977

Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO
Featuring a favourite painting, Fred Williams ‘Wild Dog Creek’ 1977, 2020

Raelene Sharp

Portrait, oil on linen

Commissioned with funds provided by Nigel Satterley AM and Denise Satterley 2020

Rod McNicol

Rod McNicol (b. 1946), photographic artist, studied photography at Prahran College in Melbourne, where he formed a close friendship with Athol Shmith.

1 portrait in the collection

Elizabeth Blackburn AC

Tom Carrington, The Australasian Sketcher

Elizabeth Blackburn AC (b. 1948) shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009, becoming the first Australian woman Nobel laureate.

1 portrait in the collection

Kelly in the Guard's Van en route to Beechworth (from The Australasian Sketcher, 17 July 1880)

Kelly in the Guard's Van en route to Beechworth (from The Australasian Sketcher, 17 July 1880), 1880

Portrait, wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2017

Famous

Karin Catt Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2006

Australian photographer Karin Catt has photographed world leaders, a host of rock stars and Oscar-winning compatriots Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, and Cate Blanchett.

Sue Ford

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2019

Sue Ford (née Winslow, 1943–2009), photographer, filmmaker and photo-media artist, grew up in the beachside suburbs of Melbourne and became interested in photography while on holiday in Europe at age 17.

2 portraits in the collection

A spectral sentience

Aimee Board reveals method, motivation and mortality in the portraiture of Rod McNicol.

Eva Besen AO

Eva Besen AO (1928–2021), philanthropist and arts benefactor, founded the Besen Family Foundation with her husband Marc Besen AC.

1 portrait in the collection

Marc Besen AC

Marcus (Marc) Besen AC (1923–2023), philanthropist and arts benefactor, founded the Besen Family Foundation with his wife Eva Besen AO.

1 portrait in the collection

Russell Crowe, 1995 (printed 2016)

Stuart Spence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Bob Jenyns

Robert ‘Bob’ Jenyns (1944-2015) grew up in Victoria and gained his diploma in art from the Caulfield Institute of Technology in 1964.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Wentworth Wills

Previous exhibition, 2009

Thomas Wentworth (Tom) Wills (1836–1880), is popularly thought of as the co-inventor of Australian Rules football.

2 portraits in the collection

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009

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.

Forum participants

Contemporary women artists make Australian history

Biographies of participants in the Writing lives, revealing lives forum.

Marilyn Ball, Albatross, 2018 (detail) by Linde Ivimey

So Fine

Previous exhibition, 2018

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.

Tom Wills, c. 1857 (printed c. 1905-1910)

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on grey paper on card

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Observation point

Magazine article by Tim Storrier, 2013

Tim Storrier describes the influences on the development of his artistic style.

Rick Amor

21 Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2014

Rick Amor, noblest yet most unaffected of contemporary Australian portraitists, is also a painter of enigmatic, ominous landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes that haunt the viewer like dreams, dimly-recalled.

2021 Annual Appeal

Annual Appeal

In 2021 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Peter Brew-Bevan's portraits of athletes Turia Pitt, Leisel Jones OAM and Ellie Cole OAM.

Glossy 2

Faces, Magazines, Now

Previous exhibition, 2005

Following the success of Glossy: Faces, Magazines, Now in 1999 the National Portrait Gallery again highlights the huge array of contemporary portraiture in the pages of magazines.

The fat of the land

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2009

Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’.

Time and light

In Gallery Seven

Previous exhibition, 2023

This sample of 56 photographs takes in some of the smallest photographs we own and some of the largest, some of the earliest and some of the most recent, as well as multiple photographic processes from daguerreotypes to digital media.

Open Air

Portraits in the Landscape

Previous exhibition, 2008

Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.

Aussies all

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2006

The exhibition Aussies all features the ecclectic portrait photography of Rennie Ellis which captures Australian life during the 70s and 80s.

Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet

Photographic Portraits from 19th Century Australia

Louis-Claude Desaulses de Freycinet (1779–1842), hydrographer and cartographer, sailed with Nicolas Baudin on the Expédition aux terres australes, a journey of discovery, commissioned by Napoléon, to the unknown southern coast of New Holland.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa

Husbands and Wives

Previous exhibition, 2010

'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.

First Ladies

Significant Australian Women 1913–2013

Previous exhibition, 2013

First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.

So Fine

17 May 2018

Archived media releases 2018

The National Portrait Gallery is pleased to announce its winter exhibition is So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history. It will open to the public from 29 June 2018.

Hottie's Snifter to port

Magazine article by Peter Jeffrey, 2016

Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.

9 lives of Karin Catt

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2006

Australian photographer Karin Catt has shot across the spectrum of celebrity, her subjects including rock stars, world leaders and actors.

Australian Visit

Previous exhibition, 2006

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.

So Fine

28 June 2018

Archived media releases 2018

Ten women artists explore the possibilities of portraiture as a contemporary art form; and reinterpret and reimagine Australian history in the Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history.

Trevor Jamieson, 2016 by Brett Canet-Gibson

The more things change...

NPPP 2017 exhibition essay

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.

Uncommon Australians

Previous exhibition, 2015

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.

Profile of a marriage

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the lives of Sir George Grey and his wife Eliza, the subjects of a pair of wax medallions in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

Annual Appeal

Listed by year

Honour board

The inner voice

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2011

Dr Christopher Chapman, curator of Inner Worlds: Portraits & Psychology looks at Albert Tucker's Heidelberg military hospital portraits.

Unheroic Materialism: little harmless fragments of memory and association: a portrait of Angus Trumble, 2019 Evert Ploeg

The last word

Magazine article by Dr David Hansen, 2022

David Hansen’s tribute to his close friend, prince of words and former National Portrait Gallery director, the late Angus Trumble.

Untitled, Conductors, Tramways series, 1990 © Matt Nettheim

Back track

About Face article

Penelope Grist finds photographer Matt Nettheim re-visiting a formative and fulfilling career tram stop.

Reveries

Magazine article by Helen Ennis, 2007

The exhibition Reveries: Photography and mortality is a powerful display which brings together images that depict the last phase of people's lives.

Safe space

Magazine article by Amy Middleton, 2023

Amy Middleton on the power of portraiture in promoting inclusivity and connecting with intersectionality and diversity in all its forms.

Lustre, held by a Groom, ca. 1762 by George Stubbs

Stubbs and the horse

About Face article

One of the chief aims of George Stubbs, 1724–1806, the late Judy Egerton’s great 1984–85 exhibition at the Tate Gallery was to provide an eloquent rebuttal to Josiah Wedgwood’s famous remark of 1780: “Noboby suspects Mr Stubs [sic] of painting anything but horses & lions, or dogs & tigers.”

William Charles Wentworth -The Australian Patriot

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2015

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

In and out of focus

Magazine article by Gael Newton, 2017

Gael Newton looks at Australian photography, film and the sixties through the novel lens of Mark Strizic.

Self-portrait in white jacket , 1901-02 Hugh Ramsay

Wunderkind lost

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2021

Inga Walton on the brief but brilliant life of Hugh Ramsay.

NPPP 2016 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2017

Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.

Progressive pictures

Athol Shmith’s photographs contributed to the emergence of a new vision of Australian womanhood.

The artist and her family, c. 1854 by Martha Berkeley

Presence and absence

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2018

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

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.

Helen Blaxland judging flower arrangements, c. 1940s photographer unknown

Petal to the mettle

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.

The art of Inner Worlds

Lecture, 7 May 2011

Dr Christopher Chapman NPG Curator of Inner Worlds explains the development of an exhibition that spans from Surrealism to contemporary art.

Rick Amor: 21 Portraits

Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.

Less than six degrees of separation

Lecture, 28 May 2011