Search / emily simpson

Portrait of Brendan Nelson, 2019

Max Schubert, 1980

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Alfred Simpson, c. 1866

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2014

Sarah Simpson, c. 1866

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2014

Alice Want, 1853

Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Edward Telford Simpson, 1919

Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Me and My Place

Emily Fairfax, 1870

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Emily Spencer Wills, c. 1855

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

Storied portrait

Emily Casey takes in Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait, Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe.

(James Smith) Homunculus trance, 2023-2024

Purchased 2024

(Rosaleen Norton) Chain of being, 2023-2024

Gift of the artist 2025. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

(Leila Waddell) Chain of being, 2023-2024

Gift of the artist 2025. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (Study for 'Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily'), 1993

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Emily, 1994

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

Emily's brush, 1994

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

Emily Kame Kngwarreye with Lily, 1993

Purchased 1998

Emily Kame Kngwarreye, 1995

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr. Morris Low 2000

Emily Kngwarreye, 1994

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

Emily Kame Kngwarreye, 1995

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Bequest of Alan Boxer 2014

Jenny Sages

The exhibition Sages examines the process of portrait making through four large-scale portraits of women by Jenny Sages, paired with intimate preparatory drawings.

(James Smith / Joshua Smith) Chain of being, 2023-2024

Purchased 2024

Emily and Effi

The Brontë Sisters (Anne Brontë; Emily Brontë; Charlotte Brontë)

The house, the horse, the wife and the offspring

Joanna Gilmour writes about the portraiture of the colonial artist William Nicholas.

My Lovely Sister

Marcie Elizabeth Wilson, 1922

Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

William Hardy Wilson at Purulia, Warrawee, 1921 (printed by Max Dupain 1981)

Gift of the Simpson Family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Sir Charles Lloyd Jones, 1951

Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Bringing down a kingdom

The king and the showgirl

William Charles Wentworth, 1854

Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Rosemary Madigan, 1992

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

Paris to Monaro

After successfully exploring the art scenes of London, France and Morocco, Hilda Rix Nicholas settled at Knockalong, a property near Delegate, on the Monaro plain in the 1920s.

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2023

Little Darlings is for primary and secondary students, with four separate categories across Kindergarten to Year 12. Responding to the theme ‘Me and my place’, students painted, drew, photographed, printed or combined all of these to make their portrait.

Ada Bird Petyarre, 1990

Gift of Leo Christie 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Powerful Indigenous women

June Oscar AO lauds three iconic Aboriginal figures in the Portrait Gallery collection who have inspired and influenced her.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), 1943-1944

Purchased 2019

Alluring Performance Brings Gallery to Life

See the Gallery through a different lens and experience the portraits with a unique sensorial performance of movement, voice and live sound.

D.A.S. Campbell (David Alexander Stewart Campbell), 1963

Gift of Dr Mary Newlinds and Sheena Simpson in memory of their father, D.A.S. Campbell, 2014

General Cosgrove, Dili, East Timor 1999, 2006

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Andrew Cannon and L. Gordon Darling AC CMG 2006

Lady Barkly, 1863

Purchased 2014

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.

Trains, Towers and Thom Roberts

Isobel Parker Philip introduces artist Thom Roberts, whose distinctive portraits of people, buildings and personified trains define the world as he experiences it.

Self portrait (Hilda in the Chinoise hat), c. 1913

Gift of Bronwyn Wright 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Gloria Petyarre, 1994

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

Portrait Gallery benefits from generous Boxer bequest

Canberran and modernist art collector Alan Boxer has generously bequeathed two works by artists Arthur Boyd and Jenny Sages to the National Portrait Gallery.

Russell Page in Venice, 1997

Purchased 2002

Gloria Petyarre, 2005

Gift of the artist 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

A Path of Focus: Portrait of Cate and Bronte Campbell, 2021

Purchased 2022

Portraits for Posterity

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.

Annual Appeal

Paths to portraiture

The life and art of Australian artist Jenny Sages is on display in the exhibition Paths to Portraiture.

Headspace 7

Headspace 7: Me and My Place, the seventh in the National Portrait Gallery's series of student exhibitions, will be presented at Commonwealth Place. Me and My Place is the curatorial theme for the 2006 exhibition.

Great Suffragette demonstration in London, 1911

Purchased 2011

Rick Amor

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.

Georg von Neumayer, c. 1860

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009

2021 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.

Recognition

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

Open Air

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

Martha Mary Robertson, 1866

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

On active service

The National Portrait Gallery has acquired an evocative depiction of soldier Peter Cosgrove by the Victorian-based painter, printmaker and sculptor Rick Amor.

William St. Leonards Robertson, c. 1869

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Uncommon Australians

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.

True Stories

The story behind the creation of the portrait of Helen Garner by Jenny Sages.

Nicholas Chevalier, c. 1867

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009

Announcing... Portrait23: Identity

In this major new exhibition marking the National Portrait Gallery’s third decade, 23 Australian artists and collectives have been invited to create portraits without constraints or boundaries.

Robert Kermode, c. 1840

Purchased 2008. The original frame for this work was donated to the National Portrait Gallery of Australia by the National Gallery of Victoria 2009.

Martha Kermode, c. 1840

Purchased 2008. The original frame for this work was donated to the National Portrait Gallery of Australia by the National Gallery of Victoria 2009.

Husbands and Wives

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

The line of fire

Michelle Fracaro examines the life of World War II nurse Margaret Anderson, whose portrait by Napier Waller is in the NPG collection.

Finest quality

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of Chinese-Australian businessman and philanthropist Quong Tart.

The National Portrait Prizes

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.

2023 Annual Appeal

In 2023 the Annual Appeal was focussed on a work by one of Australia's best loved and most successful portrait painters, Judy Cassab AO CBE, depicting model, entrepreneur and deportment icon, June Dally-Watkins OAM.

2022 Annual Appeal

In 2022 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Mayatjara by Robert Fielding, a series of 24 photographs of Elders of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara community.

Australian Visit

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.

Time and light

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.

First Ladies

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

Sideshow Alley

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.

Joan Alone

Julia Gillard pays poignant tribute to her friend and mentor, the late Joan Kirner, Victoria’s first and only female premier.

Louise Whelan

I met Kaloti Parmjit the day I took the photo. I first visited the Sikh temple in the suburb of Glenwood to take photos as part of a social documentary project I'm undertaking for the State Library of NSW.

Shadows of light

Mark Haworth-Booth explains why Bill Brandt is one of the most important British photographers of the Twentieth Century.

Home and away

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.

For the boys

The photographs from Matthew Sleeth's tour of duty series look more like advertisements than images of war.

Giving and getting

The exhibition Portraits for Posterity celebrates gifts to the Gallery, of purchases made with donated funds, and testifies to the generosity and community spirit of Australians.

Illuminating history

Joanna Gilmour reflects on 25 years of collecting at the National Portrait Gallery.

Portrait Donors

Washington preview

Ron Ramsey, former Director of Cultural Relations at the Embassy of Australia interviewed NPG Washington Director, Marc Pachter, about their building renovations.

Lovers of light

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

A real Pratt

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.

Petal to the mettle

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

Give me five

National Portrait Gallery director Karen Quinlan AM nominates her quintet of favourites from the collection, with early twentieth-century ‘selfies’ filling the roster.

Take thy face hence

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

The incomparable Beaton

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).

Women make history

Jennifer Higgie uncovers the intriguing stories behind portraits of women by women in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

The 'I' in Indigenous art

Jane Raffan examines unique styles of Indigenous portraiture that challenge traditional Western concepts of the artform.

Lovingly observed

Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.

Mugshots

A toast to the acquisition of an unconventional new portrait of former Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce.

A feast of friends

John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.

You are who?

Joanna Gilmour reflects on merging collections and challenging traditional assumptions around portraiture in WHO ARE YOU.

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.