Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Sydney Airports Corporation 2001
Sarah Hill introduces the portrait busts of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Captain Charles Ulm by Enid Fleming.
Sir Charles Kingsford Smith MC AFC (1897- last seen 1935) and Captain Charles Ulm (1898-last seen 1934) together founded Australian National Airlines.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Sydney Airports Corporation 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009
Joshua Smith studied sculpture with Rayner Hoff and took classes in drawing and painting at Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School.
5 portraits in the collection
Benjamin ‘Ben’ Roberts-Smith VC MG (b. 1978), is a former Australian Army soldier, and Victoria Cross recipient.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Eric Smith 2019
Dick Smith (b. 1944), businessman, aviator, film-maker and explorer, developed interests in radio and the bush as a boy.
2 portraits in the collection
Eric Smith (1919-2017), painter, was born in Brunswick, Melbourne, and trained in commercial art at the Brunswick Technical College before serving in the army during World War 2.
6 portraits in the collection
Julian Smith, surgeon and photographer, came to Australia with his family from England at the age of three.
2 portraits in the collection
Tommy Smith (1916-1998), racehorse trainer, was born at Jembaicumbene near Braidwood, NSW.
2 portraits in the collection
David Smith, painter, draughtsman, printmaker and teacher, was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, where he attended the Technical School and the Lowestoft and Norwich Schools of Art.
1 portrait in the collection
Bernard Smith (1916-2011) was one of Australia's most important twentieth-century art historians and an influential cultural commentator.
2 portraits in the collection
Sydney Ure Smith, publisher, was responsible for the establishment of Art in Australia in 1916-1942 and the journals The Home and Australian National Journal.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Gerard Smith (1839-1920), governor, was educated at Eton before purchasing a commission as an ensign and lieutenant in the Scots Fusilier Regiment of Foot Guards, with whom he served in Canada in 1863-1864.
1 portrait in the collection
Robin Smith grew up in rural New Zealand, and studied arts and fine arts at Canterbury University before beginning to write and illustrate adventure and natural history stories.
1 portrait in the collection
Heide Smith took up photography as a young girl in Germany in 1948, when her uncle gave her a Zeiss Ikon camera.
3 portraits in the collection
Shirley 'Mum Shirl' Smith AO OBE (1921–1998), humanitarian, was a Wiradjuri woman.
1 portrait in the collection
Recorded 1965
Recorded 1975
Recorded 1962
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the late May Ralph 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Peter Purves Smith had been a student at Geelong Grammar and a jackaroo before undertaking art studies at the Grosvenor School in London, the George Bell School in Melbourne and the Grande Chaumière in Paris.
2 portraits in the collection
John Firth-Smith (b. 1943) is a Sydney abstract painter. In the early 1960s he won a number of 'young artist' prizes for his paintings of yachts on Sydney Harbour, but by 1968 his work was becoming increasingly abstract, featuring large fields of opaque colour.
2 portraits in the collection
Grace Cossington Smith OBE (1892-1984) was an artist who was at the forefront of the Australian modernist movement.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Stephen Murray-Smith (1922-1988), writer and editor, was educated at Geelong Grammar and the University of Melbourne before serving in New Guinea during World War 2.
1 portrait in the collection
John Raphael Smith worked in various drapery establishments and painted miniatures before turning to engraving in London.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Eve 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Born: 1957, Gympie, QLD
Works: Brisbane
Recorded 1961
Recorded 1965
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned in 2018 with funds raised through the 2020 project
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of an anonymous donor 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Eric Smith 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
The series 'David Moore: From Face to Face' was acquired as a gift of the artist and with financial assistance from Timothy Fairfax AC and L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Bequest of Richard Divall AO OBE 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Henry Vernon Crock AO in memory of David Smith 2007
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Eric Smith describes the agony and finally the ecstasy of winning the 1982 Archibald Prize with the portrait of Peter Sculthorpe.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Jessica Smith looks at the 'fetching' portrait of Tasmania's first Anglican Bishop, Francis Russell Nixon by George Richmond
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lyn Williams AM 2011
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Heide Smith 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
The National Portrait Gallery acquired the self-portrait by Grace Cossington Smith in 2003.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Susanna de Vienne, Sarah Wood and David Lloyd Jones 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Susanna de Vienne, Sarah Wood and David Lloyd Jones 2009.
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Eric Smith 2019
The name of Florence Broadhurst, one of Australia’s most significant wallpaper and textile designers, is now firmly cemented in the canon of Australian art and design.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Bequest of Lady Maisie Drysdale 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Charles Ulm (1898-1934) began work as a clerk in a stockbroking office after he left school, but enlisted under a false identity in the 1st Battalion of the AIF just before his 16th birthday.
2 portraits in the collection
Charles Teo AM (b. 1957) is a neurosurgeon. Born in Sydney, where he attended Scots College and graduated in medicine and surgery from the University of New South Wales, he worked for some years at the Children’s Medical Center, Dallas, Texas and was Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Arkansas.
1 portrait in the collection
Close contemporaries, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith were frequently sources of inspiration and irritation to each other.
Jack Charles (b. 1943), actor, Indigenous elder and activist, was born at the Cummeragunja Mission on the Murray River and taken from his mother when he was less than twelve months old.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Turner (1773-1851), engraver, was born in Oxfordshire and moved to London at the end of the 1780s.
2 portraits in the collection
Charles Kean (1811-1868), actor, threw in his Eton education when his mother was deserted by his penniless father, the tragedian Edmund Kean.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Blackman OBE (1928–2018), artist, studied at East Sydney Technical College and worked as a press artist for the Sun newspaper before moving to Melbourne, where he came to the attention of arts patron John Reed.
9 portraits in the collection
Charles Abraham, son of a London architect, trained at the Royal Academy schools under the sculptor Sierier, and for a further three years in Paris and Rome.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Troedel (1835-1906), born in Hamburg, was working in Norway when he was headhunted by AW Schuhkrafft, a Melbourne printer who seeking European craftsmen.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Brome, engraver, trained from the age of fourteen with the engraver Skelton in London and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1798 to 1801.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Rodius (aka Rhodius) was born in Germany and went to England sometime before 1829, when he was convicted of stealing a reticule and transported to NSW for seven years.
3 portraits in the collection
Charles Wheeler OBE (1881-1977), artist, was born in New Zealand and came to Australia as a boy.
8 portraits in the collection
Charles Alfred Woolley (1834-1922), photographer and sketcher, ran a studio on Macquarie Street in Hobart from 1859 to 1870, producing numerous portraits along with views and stereographs of Hobart and surrounding areas.
6 portraits in the collection
Sir (Alan) Charles Mackerras AC CBE (1925-2010) was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 1982 to 1985.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Charles Moses (1900-1988), legendary General Manager of the ABC from 1935 to 1965, was born 21 January 1900 in Lancaster, UK and migrated to Australia in 1922, after four years in the army.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Windeyer (1780-1855), magistrate, emigrated to Australia in 1828, having worked as a journalist, publisher and parliamentary reporter in London.
2 portraits in the collection
Charles Perry (1807-1891) was consecrated the first Bishop of Melbourne at Westminster Abbey in 1847, only eleven years after he was ordained into the Anglican church.
4 portraits in the collection
Charles Perkins AO (1936–2000) was an Indigenous rights campaigner and bureaucrat.
5 portraits in the collection
Sir Charles Nicholson (1808-1903), statesman, landowner, businessman, connoisseur, scholar and physician, was born illegitimately into unpropitious circumstances in Yorkshire.
2 portraits in the collection
Charles Summers (1825-1878) was an English born sculptor, who came to Australia in 1852.
2 portraits in the collection
Charles Chauvel (1897-1959), actor and film-maker, worked on the sets of Snowy Baker films as a young man, and followed the great action hero to Hollywood in 1921.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles 'Bud' Tingwell AM (1923-2009), actor, became the youngest radio announcer in Australia when he was employed at Sydney radio station 2CH as a cadet.
1 portrait in the collection
The Australian cricket team of 1882 was the third side to tour England and the team whose defeat of England at The Oval in August of that year initiated the 'The Ashes' Test series.
1 portrait in the collection
Recorded 1965
Recorded 1971
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rob and Paula McLean 2011
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Acclaimed neurosurgeon, Charlie Teo discusses the pressures of his career.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Sydney Airports Corporation 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Charles Warman Roberts (1821–1894), publican, was born in Sydney, the eldest son of free settler parents who emigrated to Australia in 1821.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Charles Lloyd Jones (1878-1958), merchant and arts patron, grew up in Sydney, where he studied at Julian Ashton's art school in 1895.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Cameron Kingston was a delegate from South Australia to the Constitutional Convention, Sydney, 1891.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Vincent Charles Fairfax CMG (1909-1993), pastoralist, was the son of JHF Fairfax.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801-1875), colonial administrator, travelled widely in Europe and America before beginning his colonial career in the West Indies in 1837.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Eleonora Triguboff 2013
Charles John Cerutty CMG (1870-1941), public servant, began his career at the age of eighteen as a clerk in the Victorian Department of the Treasurer.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Gibson Millar (1839–1900), entrepreneur, was engaged in a number of industrial and agricultural enterprises in Australia during the 1870s, 80s and 90s.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Haddon Chambers (1860-1921), playwright and dramatist, grew up in Sydney.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Charles Edward Merrett CBE (1863-1948), merchant and agriculturalist, was a schoolboy at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School when his father was retrenched and died.
1 portrait in the collection
Anthony Charles Carden (1961-1995), activist and actor, became interested in performance while a school student at Knox Grammar, Wahroonga.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Stephen Scheding and Jim Berry 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Allanah Dopson & Nicholas Heyward 2009
Stephen Phillips talks to neurosurgeon Charlie Teo about his practice, perspectives and the anatomy of hope.
Meredith McKinney, subject of Charles Blackman's 'The Family', recounts memories from her childhood and the creation of the portrait.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Dr Charles Teo, high-profile neurosurgeon, describes how it felt to sit for the portrait by Adam Chang.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Sir Charles Mackerras 2009
Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool (1729–1808), statesman, was educated at Oxford and entered parliament in 1761.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased through the Foundation Acquisitions Fund 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2013
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Charles Robert Wynn-Carrington (1843–1928), 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire, landowner and Liberal politician, was governor of New South Wales in the late 1880s.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of HOTA (Home of the Arts), Gold Coast 2019 with the encouragement of Patrick Corrigan AM
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Gift of Warwick Evans 2021. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Barbara Blackman 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Aimee Board chats to emerging photographer Charles Dennington.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Allanah Dopson and Nicholas Heyward 2009
Echoing 19th-century photography, Rod McNicol's portraits give us a chance to look quietly at the human condition.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Gift of Lesley Saddington 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Gift of the artist 2020
Gift of the artist 2020
Gift of the artist 2020
Gift of the artist 2020
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by
Allanah Dopson & Nicholas Heyward 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2020
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Joanna Russell Maher (née Windeyer) 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Thoms family 2011
Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington (1860–1940) had served four years in the House of Commons before being appointed governor of Queensland in October 1895.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ronald Walker 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2003
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004
Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
In 2006 the National Portrait Gallery acquired a splendid portrait of Victoria's first governor, Lieutenant Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe by Thomas Woolner.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Charles Haddon Chambers the Australian-born playboy playwright settled permanently in London in 1880 but never lost his Australian stance when satirising the English.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Sir William Dobell painted the portraits of Sir Charles Lloyd Jones and Sir Hudson Fysh, who did much to promote the image of Australia in this country and abroad.
Sarah Engledow is seduced by the portraits and the connections between the artists and their subjects in the exhibition Impressions: Painting light and life.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Michael Desmond discusses Fred Williams' portraits of friends, artist Clifton Pugh, David Aspden and writer Stephen Murray-Smith, and the stylistic connections between his portraits and landscapes.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Sandefur 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2006
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Joanna McNiven 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Bequest of Lady Maisie Drysdale 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patricia Tryon Macdonald 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Charles is my wingman
Winner, DPA 2016
Commissioned in 2018 with funds raised through the 2020 project
Enid Fleming was a pupil of Rayner Hoff's at the East Sydney Technical College at the time these works were made (Hoff and several of his other students were working on the Anzac Memorial at the time).
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Danina Anderson, daughter of Max Dupain 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Gilbert Eric Douglas (1902-1970), pilot and air force officer, took part in Sir Douglas Mawson's British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) of 1929-1931.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009
Frank McIlwraith was the London representative for the Australian periodical Smith's Weekly in the late 1930s.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE 2008
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE (1915-2009) was a pioneering pilot. Determined from her early girlhood to fly, Bird worked in her father's general store to save up for helmet, goggles and leathers.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Charles Warman Roberts married Annie Edensor Marsden (1824-1895) in Sydney in June 1845.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir William Dargie, painter and eight times winner of the Archibald Prize for portraiture, died in Melbourne on July 26, 2003, aged 91.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Sally Douglas 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the family of Sir Victor and Lady Windeyer 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Peter Garrett AM (b. 1953), musician, environmental activist and former politician, is the lead singer of the band Midnight Oil, which originated around Sydney’s northern beaches in the mid-1970s.
12 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Ann Mary Windeyer (née Rudd, c. 1783–1865) arrived in Sydney in 1828 with her husband Charles Windeyer (1780–1855) and nine of their ten children.
1 portrait in the collection
Henry Bryan Hall grew up in England and began his trade as an apprentice to the engravers Benjamin Smith and Henry Meyer.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Joanna Russell Maher (née Windeyer) 2018
Mavis (Maisie) Mathews (1915-2001), children’s librarian and artists’ muse, developed an interest in art as a Melbourne schoolgirl, and attended both the University of Melbourne and the George Bell School until she opted for the latter.
1 portrait in the collection
The Photographic Society of Victoria was formed in 1876 to 'bring photographers together in a friendly spirit, in order to advance the art and science of photography in the colony, without any attempt at binding or dictating to members any special trading rules, such as charges for photographs or hours or days for closing or opening their respective establishments.' At the time of the first annual meeting on 9 March 1877 there were 61 members, five whom were ladies.
1 portrait in the collection
As a tribute to Sir William Dargie's singular contribution to Australian art and cultural institutions, and on the occasion of his birthday, The Australian War Memorial, Parliament House and the National Portrait Gallery will mount exhibitions of his work between May and October
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Reg, Lesley, Glen and Paul Thoms 2011
This article examines the portraits gifted to the National Portrait Gallery by Fairfax Holdings in 2003.
Joanna Gilmour explores the extraordinary life of Australian female aviator Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
This issue of Portrait Magazine features Grace Cossington Smith, the Fairfax portrait gift and Lewis Morley's photographs.
Francis Lymburner (1916-1972) was a Queensland-born artist who was educated at Brisbane Grammar and took art classes at Brisbane Technical College.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018
Sarah Reading (1808-1875) came to Sydney from England in 1838 with her husband, John Fairfax (1805-1877), who had left school at the age of twelve and been apprenticed to a printer and bookseller.
1 portrait in the collection
John Fairfax (1805-1877) was a newspaper publisher whose purchase of the Sydney Morning Herald in 1841 began a family association with the paper that would last for over five generations and nearly 150 years.
3 portraits in the collection
George Moore (1923-2008), champion jockey, was born in Mackay, Qld and was apprenticed in Brisbane in 1938.
1 portrait in the collection
Natasha Johnston (1914-1984) was born Nataliya Konstantinovna Bagration-Moukhranskya, Princess Natasha Bagration, in Crimea.
1 portrait in the collection
An annual event to extend traditional notions of portraiture and foster emerging artists with an interest in new technology.
Les Darcy (1895-1917), boxer, was one of Australia's earliest sporting heroes.
3 portraits in the collection
Andrew Sayers outlines the highlights of the National Portrait Gallery's display of portrait sculpture.
This issue features Cindy Sherman, Tim Storrier, Brett Whiteley and Patrick White, contemporary Chinese portraiture, Charles Blackman and more.
George Finey, one of Australia's best-known cartoonists, was born in Auckland and was selling drawings to local newspapers by the time he was 14.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Alec Murray was a photographer whose Alec Murray's Album: Personalities of Australia was published by Sydney Ure Smith in about 1948.
1 portrait in the collection
Little is known of John Chapman, who engraved fine allegorical subjects after the designs of J Smith and Richard Corbould and worked closely with Thomas Macklin on his Shakespeare series.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Hugo Vickers 2005
Harry Hudson (1907-1974) was a Melbourne-based painter. His work was included in a number of group exhibitions at the Bridget McDonnell Gallery, Carlton in the 1980s along with those of such notable artists as Roland Wakelin, Grace Cossington-Smith and James Gleeson.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Charles E. Jones and Kim Lloyd Jones 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
Gift of Charles E. Jones and Kim Lloyd Jones 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Very little is known as yet about the artist G Ziegler, who may have been related to the painter Henry Bryan Ziegler.
1 portrait in the collection
The National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition is selected from a national field of entries that reflect the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.
Gwen Pratt FRAS (b.1917) is a traditional painter and portraitist in oil, watercolour and pastel.
1 portrait in the collection
Influential Indigenous Australian artist Michael Riley (1960 - 2004) created these portrait photographs between 1984 and 1990 - they stand as an intricately connected group portrait of the vibrant urban-based Indigenous arts community in Sydney's inner-west at a formative moment.
Charles 'Chicka' Dixon (1928-2010) was an indigenous arts, cultural and health advocate.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
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.
French artist Jean Baptiste Guth was a regular contributor of portraits to Vanity Fair during the late 1880s and throughout the 1890s.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Tamsin Hong recounts the tale of Marion Smith, the only known Australian Indigenous servicewoman of World War One.
Elizabeth Fairfax (née Jesson, 1778–1861), colonial free settler, was born in Birmingham and around 1800 married William Fairfax, whose family had previously held estates in Barford, Warwickshire.
1 portrait in the collection
Barry Sullivan (1821-1891), English actor, performed on the Melbourne stage between 1862 and 1866.
1 portrait in the collection
Richard Windeyer (1806-1847), journalist, barrister and politician, was the eldest of the ten children born to Charles Windeyer and his wife Ann Mary and remained in England when the rest of his family went to New South Wales.
3 portraits in the collection
Ron Mueck grew up in Melbourne and began a career in puppetry and special-effects based in the US and then London. In the mid-1990s Charles Saatchi commissioned four major works including Dead dad, which were exhibited in Saatchi’s exhibition ‘Sensation’ at the Royal Academy, London and which travelled to Berlin and Brooklyn.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Find out more from each of the artists reinterpreting and reimagining elements of Australian history.
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J.B. Windeyer 2018
Lady Hannah Benyon Lloyd Jones OBE (1901-1982) was the third wife of Sir Charles Lloyd Jones, the chairman of David Jones from 1920 until his death in 1958.
2 portraits in the collection
Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.
Danelle Bergstrom (b. 1957) was born in Sydney. She studied art and art education at the Julian Ashton school (1974-1979) and at Alexander Mackie CAE.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
To celebrate Peter Sculthorpe's 80th birthday, the National Portrait Gallery has created a feature exhibition of portraits and associated biographic material drawn from the National Portrait Gallery and the composer’s personal collection.
The winner of the Digital Portraiture Award 2016 has been announced. Congratulations to Amiel Courtin-Wilson for his submission titled Charles.
Marian Anderson, emerging photographer Charles Dennington, piscatorial portraits, and the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou. and more.
Joy Hester (1920-1960) was the only female member of the Angry Penguin movement, which included artists Tucker, Sydney Nolan and Arthur Boyd.
1 portrait in the collection
Paul Haefliger (1914-1982) trained in Sydney and then in London with Bernard Meninsky and Mark Gertler.
1 portrait in the collection
Helge Jon Molvig was born and grew up in Newcastle, where he left school at thirteen and worked in a garage and at the steelworks.
6 portraits in the collection
Dempsey’s people: a folio of British street portraits 1824–1844 is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.
Australian photographer Rod McNicol has consistently analysed the passing of time through the evidence of the photographic portrait. At once confronting and tender, McNicol’s portrait photographs are bold and intimate.
William Owen moved to London from his native Shropshire in 1786 and was apprenticed for seven years to the coach-painter Charles Catton.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Barbara Tucker 2004
Roland Wakelin was born in New Zealand and studied at the RAS school in Sydney under Dattilo Rubbo from 1912 to 1914.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Sister Mary Brady OP (1922-2014), born in Tamworth, is a self-taught painter, though she did receive critiques from Joshua Smith and Norman Carter.
1 portrait in the collection
David Warren graduated from RMIT in 1964, after which he taught for some twenty years at the Prahran School of Art, RMIT and Ballarat CAE.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Impressions: Painting light and life presents portraits by, and of, artists at the heart of Australian impressionism including Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin.
This exhibition focuses on exploring national and communal identity through sculptural production in Australia, from the early decades of settlement through to the present day
Maria Windeyer (née Camfield, 1795–1878), landowner, emigrated to New South Wales in 1835 with her husband Richard, a barrister, and their infant son, William Charles.
2 portraits in the collection
Thomas Heathfield Carrick, miniature painter, grew up in Carlisle, where he trained and traded as a chemist, painting miniatures in his spare time.
1 portrait in the collection
James Reading Fairfax (1834 -1919) was the second of John Fairfax's sons to join him in business.
1 portrait in the collection
William Edwin 'Wep' Pidgeon, cartoonist, illustrator and painter was born in Paddington and studied art at the JS Watkins School and East Sydney Technical College.
2 portraits in the collection
Irish-born James Horan (b. 1976) is an editorial and advertising photographer whose many clients include banks, hotel chains, medical supply companies, museums and charities such as The Salvos and The Smith Family.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Hera Roberts (1892-1969) was a painter, illustrator, designer, commercial artist and milliner.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
François Bonneville was one of the leading French engravers of the period of the Revolution, selling his works at the Imprimérie du Cercle Social on the Rue du Théâtre-Francais until 1797, and then, until 1814, at successive premises on the Rue Saint Jacques.
2 portraits in the collection
The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company was founded in 1854 by George Swan Nottage.
2 portraits in the collection
Sir William Dobell (1899-1970), painter, was apprenticed to an architect and studied art in Sydney before leaving Australia for Europe in 1929.
9 portraits in the collection
Adrian Feint (1894-1971) studied at the Sydney Art School with Julian Ashton after having served in the AIF in France and Belgium in World War I, during which he was praised for gallantry.
1 portrait in the collection
Arthur Horner was born in Malvern, Victoria, and attended Sydney High School and the National Art School.
1 portrait in the collection
Born in Sydney, Garry Shead studied at the National Art School in 1961-2.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Sir Colin Syme AK (1903-1986) was chairman of BHP from 1952 to1971. Born in Perth, he attended Scotch College in Claremont, the universities of Perth and Melbourne and the University of New South Wales before becoming a solicitor in the Melbourne firm of Hedderwick, Fookes and Alston in 1923.
1 portrait in the collection
The Reutlinger Studios operated in Paris from 1850 to 1937, under the direction of Charles, Emile and Leopold Reutlinger respectively.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Russell Drysdale AC (1912-1981), painter, developed eye trouble in 1929, and had to leave boarding school for the first of many eye treatments which left him fearful of total blindness.
6 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of an anonymous donor 2001
Magda Keaney talks with Montalbetti+Campbell about their photographic portrait of Australian astronaut Andy Thomas.
Mervyn Horton AM (1917-1983), editor, art writer and entrepreneur, founded the journal Art and Australia in 1963 and edited it until his death in 1983.
1 portrait in the collection
Ian 'Molly' Meldrum AM (b. 1946) has a long history of involvement and influence in the Australian rock music industry.
1 portrait in the collection
Falk Studios was established by Melbourne-born photographer H. Walter Barnett in George Street, Sydney in 1885.
5 portraits in the collection
Thomas Purves (1909-1969), known as Tam, founded the Australian Galleries in Smith Street, Collingwood, Melbourne with his wife Anne in 1956.
1 portrait in the collection
Explore an Indian treasure trove, photography by Robert McFarlane and Nan Goldin, Michael Taylor's expressionist paintings, the Great War portraits, and more!
Stella Bowen, painter and writer, grew up in Adelaide, where she studied with Margaret Preston.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), acknowledged as one of the world's great portraitists, was master of portraits in the 'Grand Manner', replete with moral and heroic symbolism.
3 portraits in the collection
Johanna McMahon revels in history and mystery in pursuit of a suite of unknown portrait subjects.
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 the Stretton family 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard King 2008
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Kristin Headlam, born in Launceston, completed a BA at the University of Melbourne in the 1970s and studied painting at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1980-1981.
2 portraits in the collection
As the first National Portrait Gallery travelling exhibition, The reflecting eye: portraits of Australian visual artists represents an important milestone in the history of Australia's National Portrait Gallery.
The exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus offers various interpretations of sporting men and women by five Australian photographers.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rex Dupain 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Roderick Shaw (1915-1992) is perhaps best known for his worker paintings of the social realist school, such as Cable Layers (in the Art Gallery of NSW).
2 portraits in the collection
Livingston Hopkins, cartoonist, was born in Ohio and fought in the American Civil War before beginning his cartooning career in New York.
3 portraits in the collection
Aviation carried women’s roles in society to greater heights – fashion followed suit.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Philip Bacon AM 2001
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Damien Parer (1912-1944), photographer and filmmaker, became friends with Max Dupain in the thirties, often taking photographs with him on excursions to the beach and bush.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard King 2008
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Ursula Hoff AO OBE (1909–2005) was a curator, art historian and academic.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Gai Waterhouse AO, thoroughbred racehorse trainer, is the daughter of legendary trainer Tommy Smith.
1 portrait in the collection
A philosopher-style of beard – thick and lengthy; a greyer, hence wiser version of the Burke; and suited to older men who saw themselves as sagacious or statesmanlike.
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Danina Anderson, daughter of Max Dupain 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Peter Russell-Clarke, cook, started his career as a freelance cartoonist, working for advertising agencies in Australia and overseas.
1 portrait in the collection
Roy de Maistre (Roi (Leroy) de Mestre) CBE (1894-1968), painter, studied music at the Sydney Conservatorium, but was also a student at the RAS School with Dattilo Rubbo and later the Sydney Art School with Julian Ashton.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2000
Barbering manuals of the turn of the century might describe this style as a ‘Van Dyck’, named after the Dutch painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) who is known to have adopted this look.
James King (c. 1750-1784), naval officer, was born in Lancashire and educated at Clitheroe Grammar School before entering the navy in 1762.
1 portrait in the collection
Intimate Portraits is an exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints that explore the less public side of portraiture
Harold 'Hal' Hattam (1913-1994), doctor, artist and art collector, came to Australia from his native Scotland at the age of seven.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family 2012
Jan Senbergs (b. 1939) came to Australia from Latvia in 1950. He studied at the Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts, where he was influenced by Leonard French.
2 portraits in the collection
William McLellan (1831–1906), miner and parliamentarian, served on the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1859 to 1877, and again between 1883 and 1897.
1 portrait in the collection
Errol Flynn (1909-1959), actor, was born in Hobart, where his father was a biology lecturer, and spent his childhood in Tasmania, England and Sydney.
1 portrait in the collection
Brian Fitzpatrick (1905-1965) was educated at state schools in regional Victoria and Melbourne before gaining his BA from Melbourne University in 1925.
1 portrait in the collection
James Moorhouse (1826-1915), Anglican bishop, had an exceptionally distinguished career and publication record before he came from England to Melbourne to succeed Charles Perry.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gina and Ted Gregg 2010
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
Anthony Dattilo Rubbo (1870-1955) was born in Naples and received classical art training in Italy.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Hattam family in memory of Hal and Kate Hattam 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl Liverpool, Lord Hawkesbury (1770–1828), statesman, was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gerard Vaughan 2001
Desire drives forbidden love
During his long and distinguished career Max Dupain took thousands of photographs of people
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Justin O'Brien (1917-1996) was one of the major Australian artists of his generation.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Mabel Forrest (née Mills, 1872–1935), writer, was born near Yandilla on the Darling Downs and grew up on various cattle stations in the district, publishing her first poem at age ten.
1 portrait in the collection
Melbourne’s iconic culture-shapers
David Davies began studying art at the School of Mines and Industries in his birthplace, Ballarat.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2001. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
The series 'David Moore: From Face to Face' was acquired as a gift of the artist and with financial assistance from Timothy Fairfax AC and L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Danina Anderson, daughter of Max Dupain 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Roger Neill 2009
First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2002
Hugo Weaving (b. 1960) spent his childhood in England, Australia and South Africa before returning to live in Australia in 1976.
1 portrait in the collection
The story behind George Lambert's Self-portrait with Gladioli.
Julia Margaret Cameron was of the most important photographers of the nineteenth century.
1 portrait in the collection
Mungo MacCallum (1941–2020) was one of Australia's best-known political journalists.
1 portrait in the collection
Frances Perry (1815-1892) met Charles Perry through her brother, a student at Cambridge, and after they married, the couple lived at St Paul’s Cambridge, where he was vicar, for six years.
1 portrait in the collection
H. Walter Barnett (1862-1934) was a leading portrait photographer of the late Victorian, Edwardian and interwar periods.
12 portraits in the collection
Ethel Anderson (née Mason, 1883-1958), writer and artist, was an important figure in the Sydney modern art scene of the 1920s and 30s.
2 portraits in the collection
Happiness to heartache
In 2000, Barbara Blackman donated a portrait of her close friends - poet Judith Wright, her husband Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith - painted by Charles Blackman.
Emily Ross (née Fairfax) (1832-1871) was the eldest child of newspaper publisher John Fairfax - who founded the Fairfax news dynasty in Sydney in 1841 - and his wife Sarah.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
For Dempsey’s people their occasional encounters with state power would have been largely through the local parish, which administered the ‘Old Poor Law’.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Barbara Blackman (b. 1928) was only 15 when the ABC Weekly published one of her poems.
5 portraits in the collection
Mike Brown (1938-1997) artist, was a participant (with Ross Crothall and Colin Lanceley) in the 1962 Annandale Imitation Realists exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and Design, Melbourne.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2019 acknowledging Herbert Smith Freehills for supporting the creation of the portrait
Originally conceived as an anthropological record, Percy Leason’s powerful 1934 portraits of Victorian Aboriginal people are today considered to be a highlight of 20th century Australian portraiture
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Laurie Curley OAM and Mrs Robyn Curley 2012
Harry Williams (b. 1951) is a Wiradjuri man and the first Indigenous footballer to represent Australia at international level.
1 portrait in the collection
On loan from the Garran family
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM GCSI CB MD FRS (1817-1911), botanist, explorer and medical doctor, visited Australia as a member of James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition of 1839 to 1843.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard King 2008
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Australia has become recognised for the range and talent of its musicians, composers, conductors and celebrities in general associated with the music industry
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Adapted from A Tribute to William Dobell an exhibition presented by the Australian National University's Drill Hall Gallery in association with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation, The National Gallery of Australia, and the Australian War Memorial. Dobell is of course, celebrated for his achievements in portraiture, winning the Archibald prize (1943, 1948 and 1959), the Wynne Prize (1948), and representing Australia at the 1954 Venice Biennale. Curator Mary Eagle concludes her essay in the catalogue of the exhibition thus, "Overall I see a dissonance in Dobell’s art and life
Dame Nellie Melba GBE (Helen Porter Armstrong, née Mitchell, 1861-1931) was a world-renowned soprano.
8 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Robert Edwards AO 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
François Péron (1775-1810), naturalist and explorer, served as a soldier from 1792 to 1794, in which period he was imprisoned and lost the sight of one eye.
6 portraits in the collection
Desirable outcomes, undesirable origins
The Hon. Linda Jean Burney MP (b. 1957) is a Wiradjuri woman and was the first Aboriginal person to be elected to the New South Wales Parliament, in which she became Deputy Leader of the Opposition and held shadow portfolios including Family and Community Services, Aboriginal Affairs, and Sport and Recreation.
2 portraits in the collection
The Circle of Friends Acquisition Fund for 2012 was dedicated to purchasing a portrait of David Malouf by Rick Amor.
Jane Windeyer (1865–1950) was the second eldest daughter of politician and judge Sir William Charles Windeyer (1834–1897) and his wife, Mary (née Bolton, 1837–1912), a leading campaigner for women’s rights.
2 portraits in the collection
Sir Rupert ‘Dick’ Hamer AC KCMG (1916-2004) was premier of Victoria from 1972 to 1981.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Claudia Hyles, Dr Christiane Lawin-Bruessel, Gwenda Matthews, Gael Newton, Anne O'Hehir, Susan Smith and Dominic Thomas in memory of our friend, Robyn Beeche 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of self-portraits in Australia, from the colonial period to the present
Sir Robert Gibson GBE (1863-1934) trained in design and drafting in Glasgow, where he began work as a designer at an iron company; he soon became manager of its London office.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Robert Oatley AO 2007
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rodney Davidson AO OBE 2014
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892), naturalist, anatomist and palaeontologist, was born in Lancaster and apprenticed to surgeon-apothecaries there before completing his studies in medicine in Edinburgh and London.
1 portrait in the collection
Evonne Goolagong (Cawley) AC MBE (b. 1951), tennis champion, was born in the Riverina district and grew up in Barellan, NSW.
3 portraits in the collection
Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers describes the 1922 Self-portrait with Gladioli by George Lambert.
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009
The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.
Poetic trio
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Rod McNicol's method and motivation, 19th century Indigenous peoples, Barrie Cassidy on Bob Hawke, five generations of the Kang family from Korea and more.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Geoff Cousins AM 2007
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the National Australia Bank 2002
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
Sir James McCulloch KCMG (1819–1893) served four separate terms as premier of Victoria between 1863 and 1877.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014
This exhibition traces the creative output of nearly 50 years by one of Australia's landmark living photographers.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998
Jill Ker Conway AC (1934-2018), academic, writer and company director, was born in Hillston in western New South Wales and spent her early years on her father’s sheep station, Coorain, which was so isolated that she was seven years old before she saw another girl.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Barbara Blackman 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Jason Yat-Sen Li (b. 1972) was born to parents who came to Australia from China in 1959.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Courtesy of the Corrigan family and Stuart Purves
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2012
An examination of the life and times of George Lambert through the gesture and pose in his self portrait.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J.B. Windeyer 2018
Gift of Richard Elliott 2016. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Frank Hurley (1885-1962), photographer, first made his name on Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14.
2 portraits in the collection
Harold Cazneaux's portraits of influential Sydneysiders included Margaret Preston and Ethel Turner, both important figures in the development of ideas about Australian identity and culture.
William Hardy Wilson (1881-1955) - or Hardy Wilson, as he styled himself - is regarded as one of the most significant and visionary Australian architects of the twentieth century.
1 portrait in the collection
Gideon Haigh discusses portraits of Australian cricketers from the early 20th century
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
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
Purchased 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2002
In March 2003 Magda Keaney travelled to London to join the photography section of the Victoria & Albert Museum for three months.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2015
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.
James Alipius Goold (1812-1886), first Catholic bishop and archbishop of Melbourne, volunteered for service in New South Wales having studied in Rome and Perugia.
2 portraits in the collection
Thousand mile stare provides a unique portrait of people of rural Australia
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Enid Hawkins 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Hall of Mirrors: Anne Zahalka Portraits 1987-2007 explores the thread of portraiture through the artist's prolific career, now spanning more than 20 years.
A National Portrait Gallery, London exhibition redefines portraiture, shifting the focus towards a new perspective on Pop Art.
Sir Douglas Frank Hewson Packer KBE (1906-1974), media proprietor, grew up in Sydney and became a cadet journalist on the Daily Guardian, owned by his father RC Packer, in 1923.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
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
Mary Windeyer (née Bolton, 1837-1912), women's rights campaigner, was one of the nine children of Robert Thorley Bolton, a clergyman who emigrated to New South Wales in 1839.
3 portraits in the collection
Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.
Gael Newton delves into the life and art of renowned Australian photographer, Max Dupain.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John McPhee 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
The restrained and cultivated facial hair fashions evident through the first decades of the 1800s were on the wane by the middle of the century, when hirsute faces became mainstream.
This is the first in a series of National Portrait Gallery exhibitions to survey the portraits painted by artists who are not thought of, primarily, as portrait painters
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006
This is the first major exhibition to examine photographic portraiture in Australia, from its beginnings in the early 1840s to the present day
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of BHP Billiton 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Ada Jemima Crossley (1874-1929), singer, was one the first in a line of Australian-born divas to achieve an international reputation in the late 19th century.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir John Hay (1816-1892), pastoralist and politician, graduated in law in his native Scotland before emigrating to New South Wales with his new wife, Mary, in 1838.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Australian photographer Rod McNicol has consistently analysed the passing of time through the evidence of the photographic portrait. At once confronting and tender, McNicol’s portrait photographs are bold and intimate.
John David Armstrong (1857–1943) was a sideshow and vaudeville performer known as ‘The Australian Tom Thumb’.
2 portraits in the collection
Paul Gaimard (1796-1858), naturalist and naval surgeon, joined the French navy after distinguishing himself at the naval medical school at Toulon.
1 portrait in the collection
'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.
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
RM (Reginald Murray) Williams AO CBE (1908-2003), saddlery, boot and clothing manufacturer, miner and author, moved to Adelaide from his birthplace near the Flinders Rangers when he was 10.
1 portrait in the collection
For Tom Roberts - Australia's best nineteenth-century portrait painter - neither a proto-national portrait gallery nor more popular collections of portrait heads, were sufficient public celebrations for the notables of Australian history
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Nicholas-Martin Petit was born in Paris, the son of a fan maker, and learned graphic art in the studio of Jacques Louis David.
9 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008
Gamaliel Butler (1783–1852), lawyer and free settler, emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land in 1824 with his wife, Sarah (née Paine, 1787–1870).
2 portraits in the collection
Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
William Birdwood KCMG KCSI KCB DSO, 1st Baron Birdwood of Anzac and Totnes (1865-1951) commanded the Australian Corps for much of the First World War.
1 portrait in the collection
Ralph Sutton (1908-1967), Methodist minister, trained in Sydney, was ordained in 1935 and began his career in Mosman Methodist Church.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Margaret Olley Art Trust 2002
Purchased 2020
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2000
The considered matching of artist to subject has produced an amazing collection of unique and original works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery
Vanity Fair Portraits traces the birth and evolution of photographic portraiture through the archives of Vanity Fair magazine.
David Unaipon (1872-1967) writer, public speaker and inventor, was a Ngarrindjeri man, fourth of nine children of the evangelist James Ngunaitponi and his wife Nymbulda, both of whom were Yaraldi speakers.
1 portrait in the collection
Melbourne-born Rod McNicol studied photography at Prahran College, where he formed a close friendship with Athol Shmith.
1 portrait in the collection
Joanna Gilmour examines the prolific output of Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, and discovers the risk of taking a portrait at face value.
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
Introduction The National Portrait Gallery’s photographic exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus explores various interpretations of Australian sporting men and women.
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.
Tom Roberts (1856–1931), artist, came to Australia from England at the age of 13, but returned eight years later to study art in London.
12 portraits in the collection
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell KG GCMG PC (1792 –1878) was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies from 1839 to 1841 and served twice as Prime Minister of Great Britain, in 1846-1852 and 1865-1866.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) travelled to Australia as a member of the expedition conducted by Owen Stanley on the Rattlesnake between 1846 and 1850.
2 portraits in the collection
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.
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.
The ‘first Australian first-class cricket team to tour England and North America’ was in fact the second Australian cricket side to contest matches internationally (a team of Indigenous players having done so in 1868), but it is considered the first official national representative team to tour overseas.
1 portrait in the collection
Michael Kimmelman, Chief Art Critic of The New York Times and author of Portraits: Talking with Artists at the Met, the Modern, the Louvre and Elsewhere, presented the National Portrait Gallery Third Anniversary Lecture on 2 March 2002. He was generously brought to Australia by the Gordon Darling Foundation and Qantas.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Ethel Marian (Maie) Casey AC, Baroness Casey (1892-1983), chatelaine, artist, pilot and author, was born in Melbourne, the daughter of the Surgeon General, Sir Charles Ryan.
1 portrait in the collection
Pamela Gerrish Nunn explores New Zealand’s premium award for portraiture.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Mr Anthony Adair and Ms Karen MacLeod 2007
Jack Thompson AM (b. 1940), actor, worked as a jackeroo, served in the Army and studied at the University of Queensland before deciding to pursue an acting career.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lucio Galletto OAM 2012
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John McPhee 2018
Aircraft designer, pilot and entrepreneur, Sir Lawrence Wackett rejoins friends and colleagues on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Jean Appleton’s 1965 self portrait makes a fine addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s collection writes Joanna Gilmour.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of David Tuckwell 2018
Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.
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 National Portrait Gallery has unveiled twenty new portrait commissions of Australian leaders and individualists as part of its twentieth birthday celebrations in a new exhibition, 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.
Nicholas Harding: 28 portraits features paintings of Robert Drewe, John Bell and Hugo Weaving alongside gorgeously coloured recent oil portraits, delicate gouaches and bold ink and charcoal drawings.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
The National Portrait Gallery would like to congratulate the forty finalists for the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2019.
A rare and enchanting collection of 52 portraits of British street people will be on display for the first time in the National Portrait Gallery’s winter show, Dempsey’s People: a folio of British street portraits 1824-1844.
Masters of fare: chefs, winemakers, providores celebrates men and women who have championed the unique culinary characteristics and produce of Australia, enriching our lives with new ideas and new flavours over the past forty years.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
These full-length figures in watercolour, gouache and pencil date mostly from the 1820s, and almost all come from the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1847) is one of the most intriguing and talented figures in colonial Australian art.
4 portraits in the collection
Sarah Engledow on Messrs Dobell and MacMahon and the art of friendship.
Rosalie Kunoth Monks AM (1937-), indigenous welfare campaigner and elder and former actress and nun, was born at Utopia Cattle Station in the Northern Territory, the daughter of Allan Kunoth and his wife Ruby, a woman of the Ngarla people, Anmatjere tribe.
1 portrait in the collection
From 2015 to 2017 the Acquisition Fund was focussed on Reg Richardson AM by Mitch Cairns, a finalist in the Archibald Prize 2014, and a great example of minimalist portraiture.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
A toast to the acquisition of an unconventional new portrait of former Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce.
John Lort Stokes (1812–1885), explorer, naval officer and surveyor, joined the navy at age twelve and age thirteen was assigned to HMS Beagle as a midshipman.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of an anonymous donor 2007
Percy Leason, artist, illustrator and cartoonist, grew up in Victoria's Wimmera region and trained in the rudiments of art in Nhill.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Wentworth (Tom) Wills (1836–1880), is popularly thought of as the ‘inventor ‘ of Australian Rules football.
2 portraits in the collection
Sir George Hubert Wilkins (1888-1958), photographer, cinematographer, polar explorer and naturalist, spent his childhood on a farm in South Australia and became interested in photography while studying engineering and music at the University of Adelaide.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Presented by Sir Roy Strong and the late Dr Julia Trevelyan Oman in memory of their friendship with Gordon Darling and Marilyn Darling 2006
Diana O’Neil on Noel Counihan’s vivid 1971 portrait of Alan Marshall.
Thomas Woolner, sculptor, studied first with the brothers Henry and William Behnes, painter and sculptor respectively, and later at the Royal Academy, at which he was to become professor of sculpture in his fifties.
5 portraits in the collection
A newly acquired work by Stella Bowen adds to the National Portrait Gallery's growing collection of important Australian self-portraits.
Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.
Charles Henry Theodore Costantini (also Constantine, Constantini and Costantine) was a Paris-born surgeon of Italian descent who was twice transported to the Australian colonies in the 1820s.
1 portrait in the collection
William Henry Harvey (1811-1866), botanist, formed a boyhood passion for natural history which was encouraged at Ballitore School, County Kildare.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
The Chairman, Board, Director and all the Staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Founding Patron, who died peacefully in Melbourne this morning. He was 94.
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.
Dr Sarah Engledow traces the significant links between Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo and Evelyn Chapman through their portraits.
A major new exhibition celebrating love in all its guises. Opening 20 March 2021.
Family affections are preserved in a fine selection of intimate portraits.
Joanna Gilmour revels in accidental artist Charles Rodius’ nineteenth century renderings of Indigenous peoples.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Edward Riou (1762-1801), naval officer, began his career with the Royal Navy at the age of twelve.
2 portraits in the collection
Tenille Hands explores a portrait prize gifted to the National Screen and Sound Archive.
Joanna Gilmour reveals love’s more intense manifestations in the tale of Lord Kenelm and Venetia Digby.
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.
Naomi Cass, Director of the Centre of Contemporary Photography, in conversation with Anne Zahalka.
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.
The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825.
Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2009 Prize.
An interview with the photographer.
The National Portrait Gallery today announced finalists for the inaugural Darling Portrait Prize, a national new $75,000 prize for Australian portrait painting, and released selected images from the final prize pool for the popular National Photography Portrait Prize.
Jerrold Nathan's portrait of Jessie Street shows the elegant side of a many-faceted lady.
When soulmates Janet Dawson and Michael Boddy moved from Sydney to a property, Boddy was clear about why: ‘Our marriage is one long conversation - we moved to the bush so we could talk to each other without so many interruptions.’
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
The oil portrait of Sir Frank Packer KBE by Judy Cassab was gifted to the National Portrait Gallery in 2006.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.
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.
Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.
Deborah Hill talks figures with character, as the National Portrait Gallery touring exhibitions program welcomes its millionth visitor.
The National Portrait Gallery acquired a beguiling silhouette group portrait by Samuel Metford, an English artist who spent periods of his working life in America.
Select extracts from Mirka Mora's autobiography, Wicked but Virtuous, provide rich accompaniment to recent Gallery acquisitions.
Michael Desmond discusses the portrait of Senator Neville Bonner by Robert Campbell Jnr.
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
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.
Joanna Gilmour discovers that the beards of the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills were as epic as their expedition to traverse Australia from south to north.
The first collaborative commission has arrived. It's a self portrait, it's ceramic and it's from Hermannsburg.
Michael Desmond explores what makes a portrait subject significant.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was one of the greatest portrait painters in history.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of one of Melbourne's early socialites, Jessie Eyre Williams.
Angus Trumble treats the gallery’s collection with a dab hand.
Sarah Engledow on a foundational gallery figure who was quick on the draw.
Joanna Gilmour on Tom Durkin playing with Melbourne's manhood.
Christopher Chapman delights in the intimacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's photography
Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.
Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.
Anne Sanders and Christopher Chapman bring passionate characterisation to Express Yourself, the Portrait Gallery collection exhibition celebrating iconoclastic Australians.
Mark Strizic's work crosses a broad spectrum of photographic fields including urban, industrial, commercial, and architectural photography.
Penelope Grist speaks to Robert McFarlane about shooting for the stars.
Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Christopher Chapman considers photographer Rozalind Drummond's portrait of author Nam Le.
Emanuel Solomon gave shelter to the Sisters of St Joseph upon the excommunication of St Mary MacKillop.
The Portrait Gallery's paintings of two poets, Les Murray and Peter Porter, demonstrate two very different artists' responses to the challenge of representing more than usually sensitive and imaginative men.
In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.
Dr. Sarah Engledow discovers the amazing life of Ms. Hilda Spong, little remembered star of the stage, who was captured in a portrait by Tom Roberts.
Joanna Gilmour explores the 1790 portrait of William Bligh by Robert Dodd.
An interview with the photographer.
Karl James gives short shrift to doubts about the profile of General Sir John Monash.
Michael Desmond reveals the origins of composite portraits and their evolution in the pursuit of the ideal.
Michael Riley’s early portraits by Amanda Rowell.
The National Portrait Gallery's acquisition of the portrait of Edward John Eyre by pioneering English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
The death of a gentlewoman is shrouded in mystery, a well-liked governor finds love after sorrow, and two upright men become entangled in the historical record.
Basil grew into a speckled beauty – a long-legged leaper and an exceptionally vocal dog, with a great register of sounds, ascending in shock value from a whimper to a growl to a bark to a yelp that’s a violation of the ears.
Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.
As a convict Thomas Bock was required to sketch executed murders for science; as a free man, fashionable society portraits.
Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.
Scott Redford discusses his dynamic portrait commission of motorcycling champion and 2008 Young Australian of the Year Casey Stoner.
Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.
Penelope Grist’s spirits soar with Lisa Tomasetti’s Dancers in the Streets series.
Martin Sharp fulfils the Pop art idiom of merging art and life.
Chris O'Doherty, also known as Reg Mombassa, is best-known for his Mambo imagery but he also paints a lot of self portraits.
Andrew Sayers discusses the real cost of George Lambert's Self portrait with gladioli 1922.
Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.
Corinna Cullen on the symbolic power of pandemic-related imagery over the ages.
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.
One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.
The exhibition Australians in Hollywood celebrated the achievements of Australians in the highly competitive American film industry.
The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.
George Selth Coppin (1819-1906) comedian, impresario and entrepreneur, was a driving force of the early Australian theatre.
Michael Wardell samples the fare in the University of Queensland National Self-portrait Prize.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life of a colonial portrait artist, writer and rogue Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.
Angus Trumble reveals the complex technical mastery behind a striking recent acquisition, Henry Bone’s enamel portrait of William Manning.
Robyn Sweaney's quiet Violet obsession.
An exploration of national identity in the Canadian context drawn from the symposium Face to Face at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2004.
Inga Walton traces the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, revealed in the NGV’s summer retrospective.
Dr Christopher Chapman describes the experimental exhibition Portraits + Architecture
Christopher Chapman absorbs the gentle touch of Don Bachardy’s portraiture.
The Rajah Quilt’s narrative promptings are as intriguing as the textile is intricate.
Frank Hurley's celebrated images document the heroism and minutiae of Australian exploration in Antarctica.
Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2014 Prize.
Anne Sanders imbibes Tony Bilson’s gastronomic revolution.
Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.
Fiona Gruber investigates the work of Australian painter Kristin Headlam.
Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.
The complex connections between four creative Australians; Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Robert Helpmann and Peter Sculthorpe.
Diana O’Neil samples the tartan treats on offer in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.
Vanity Fair Editor David Friend describes how the rebirth of the magazine sated our desire for access into the lives of celebrities and set the standard for the new era of portrait photography.
The portrait of Dr. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster from 1780, is one of the oldest in the NPG's collection.
Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.
Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.
How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be
Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.
Dr Sarah Engledow examines a number of figures in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery who were pioneers or substantial supporters of the seminal Australian environmental campaigns of the early 1970s and 1980s.
Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.
Dr Christopher Chapman NPG Curator of Inner Worlds explains the development of an exhibition that spans from Surrealism to contemporary art.
Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.
To accompany the exhibition Cecil Beaton: Portraits, held at the NPG in 2005, this article is drawn from Hugo Vickers's authorised biography, Cecil Beaton (1985).
Joanna Gilmour describes some of the stories of the individuals and incidents that define French exploration of Australia and the Pacific.
Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture.
Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.
Athol Shmith’s photographs contributed to the emergence of a new vision of Australian womanhood.
The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.
Jane Raffan feasts on modernity’s entrée in the Belle Époque theatre of the demimonde.
Over the years the young Nicholas Harding got his hands on various mice and guinea pigs, but they served mainly to illustrate the concept of mortality.
Traversing paint and pixels, Inga Walton examines portraits of select women in Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits.
Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.
John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.
Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.
Shipmates for years, James Cook and Joseph Banks each kept a journal but neither man shed light on their relationship.
Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be
Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.
Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.
