Search / george johnston

George Henry Johnston OBE (1912-1970), journalist and novelist, grew up in Elsternwick, a working-class suburb of Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

George Johnston

Recorded 1964

George Johnston, Fleet Street, London, c. 1952 (printed 2000)

David Moore

Unknown artist Publisher Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News

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

'The Australian Cricketers' from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News June 1882, page 2

Lady Natasha Johnston

Natasha Johnston (1914-1984) was born Nataliya Konstantinovna Bagration-Moukhranskya, Princess Natasha Bagration, in Crimea.

1 portrait in the collection

Lady Natasha Johnston, 1968

Cecil Beaton

an unknown artist, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Hugo Vickers 2005

'The Australian Cricketers' from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News June 1882

'The Australian Cricketers' from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News June 1882, 1882

Portrait, engravings on paper

Purchased 2009

The Australasian Federal Convention at Sydney

The Australasian Federal Convention at Sydney, 1884

The Graphic

Portrait, wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2015

George Judah Cohen, 1925

Gift of the National Australia Bank 2002

George Gittoes - last sitting before Peshawar

George Gittoes - last sitting before Peshawar, 2007

'Self Portrait with Gladioli'

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2008

George Lambert

Portrait story

An examination of the life and times of George Lambert through the gesture and pose in his self portrait.

Sir George Coles KT CBE

Sir George Coles CBE (1885–1977) was the founder of the retail concern GJ Coles and Coy.

1 portrait in the collection

George Moore

George Moore (1923-2008), champion jockey, was born in Mackay, Qld and was apprenticed in Brisbane in 1938.

1 portrait in the collection

George Nicholas CBE

George Nicholas CBE (1884-1960), pharmacist and philanthropist, grew up in South Australia and Victoria.

1 portrait in the collection

George Dance

George Dance the Younger, architect, was a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768.

4 portraits in the collection

George Barrable

George Hamilton Barrable was a painter of portraits and landscapes, active in London in the 1870s and 1880s, who exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy..

1 portrait in the collection

George Coates

George Coates, Melbourne-born artist, started his art career in a stained glass workshop, attending classes with Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery school at night.

1 portrait in the collection

George Spartels

George Spartels (b. 1954), actor, composer, musician and presenter, was a host on the ABC television children’s program Play School from 1985 to 1999.

1 portrait in the collection

King George V

George Frederick Ernest Albert, The Duke of Cornwall and York and later King George V (1865-1936), was the son of Edward VII, the man for whom the Edwardian era was named.

4 portraits in the collection

George Bellette

George Billett (also Bellett, Bellette and Billet, 1812–1885) was a farmer and landowner, an early settler of Sorell in Tasmania, and the son of two ex-convicts.

1 portrait in the collection

George Foxhill

George Foxhill studied art in his native Austria, attending the Kunstegewerbeschule and the Volkshochschule in Salzburg after the war.

1 portrait in the collection

George Fetting

George Fetting (b. 1964) is a Sydney-based photographer specialising in portrait, travel and editorial work.

8 portraits in the collection

George Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

George Romney

George Romney, painter, was born and trained in the north of England until 1762, when moved to London, where he exhibited at the Society of Arts and later at the Free Society and the Society of Artists.

2 portraits in the collection

George A. Highland

George A Highland (1874-1954), theatrical producer, grew up in England, where, as a choirboy, he came to the attention of Arthur Sullivan.

1 portrait in the collection

George Bell OBE

George Bell studied in Melbourne and Paris, and was elected a member of the Modern Society of Portrait Painters, London, in 1908.

1 portrait in the collection

George Milpurrurru

George Milpurrurru (1934-1998), Ganalbingu (Yolgnu) painter, was one of the most important bark painters of the twentieth century.

1 portrait in the collection

George Gregan

George Gregan (b. 1973) is arguably the best rugby union half-back in the world today.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Grey

Sir George Grey (1812-1898), originally an explorer of the West Australian coast, became Governor of the near- bankrupt colony of South Australia in 1840.

2 portraits in the collection

Sir George Young

Sir George Young (1732–1810), naval officer, first went to sea at the age of fourteen and saw action in Europe and India before joining the East India Company’s marine in 1753.

1 portrait in the collection

George Molnar AO OBE

George Molnar AO OBE (1910–1998), cartoonist, artist, architect and social commentator, was born in Hungary and studied architecture at Budapest University, graduating in 1932.

1 portrait in the collection

George Garrard

George Garrard ARA, born in London, trained under the animal painter Sawrey Gilpin and enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools at the end of 1778.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Hayter

Sir George Hayter (1792-1871), English portrait and historical painter, studied briefly at the Royal Academy Schools as a teenager, running away to sea before returning to assist his father, an artist who tutored Princess Charlotte.

1 portrait in the collection

George Rose

George Rose, joint Secretary of the British Treasury at the time of the First Fleet, joined the civil service after leaving the Royal Navy in 1762.

1 portrait in the collection

George Bonnor

George Bonnor (1855–1912), cricketer, made his debut for Australia in the first official Test match between Australia and England, held at The Oval in September 1880.

1 portrait in the collection

George Baxter

George Baxter, a Londoner, is credited with inventing the first commercially viable colour printing process.

1 portrait in the collection

George Richmond

George Richmond, son of the miniature painter Thomas Richmond, grew up in London, took early artistic instruction from his father and enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools in 1824.

1 portrait in the collection

George Finey

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

Sir George Fisher CMG

Sir George Fisher CMG (1903-2007), mining industry executive, began work at the Zinc Corporation at Broken Hill in 1925 after having completed a mining engineering degree in Adelaide.

1 portrait in the collection

Making Sense of Place #4 (Portrait of Professor George Seddon)

George Seddon AM

George Seddon AM (1927-2007), scholar and academic, studied English at Melbourne University before spending several years abroad, travelling and teaching at universities in Europe and North America.

1 portrait in the collection

Mr George Watson

George John Watson (1829–1906), racing entrepreneur, was born at Ballydarton in Co.

1 portrait in the collection

George Barrington

George Barrington (1755-1804) was the best-known 'gentleman thief' of late eighteenth-century London.

3 portraits in the collection

Sir George Knibbs CBE

Sir George Knibbs CBE (1858-1929), statistician, was born into a working-class Sydney family and nothing is known of his early education.

1 portrait in the collection

George Tjungurrayi

George Tjungurrayi (b. c. 1943–1947) is a highly respected senior Pintupi artist.

2 portraits in the collection

George Lambert

George Lambert (1873–1930), artist, was born in St Petersburg and lived in Germany and England before coming to Australia with his family at the age of fourteen.

7 portraits in the collection

George Gittoes AM

George Gittoes AM (b. 1949), artist, photographer and filmmaker, has documented some of the world's most notorious conflicts.

4 portraits in the collection

George Case

George Case (life dates unknown) and his wife Grace Egerton (d. 1881), variety performers, made several successful tours of Australia in the 1860s and 1870s, although the precise dates of their visits are unknown.

1 portrait in the collection

George Pell AC

George Pell AC (1941–2023), former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, was born and educated in Ballarat, Victoria.

1 portrait in the collection

George Perry

George William Perry (1824–1900) was born in London and arrived in Victoria via South Africa around 1852.

2 portraits in the collection

George Hurrell

George Hurrell, born in Kentucky, began his working life studying painting at the Art Institute of Chicago.

1 portrait in the collection

George Mealmaker

George Mealmaker (1768–1808), convict and activist, became involved in radical politics in his native Dundee in the 1780s.

1 portrait in the collection

George Brown

George Brown (1835-1917), clergyman, established numerous Methodist missions in the Pacific from the late 1880s.

1 portrait in the collection

George B. Kerferd

Eminent scientist Dame Bridget Ogilvie AC DBE FAA FRS (b. 1938) completed her undergraduate degree at the University of New England, graduating with the University Medal in 1960.

2 portraits in the collection

George Bell

Recorded 1965

George Duncan

Recorded 1965

George Finey

Recorded 1967

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2007

Emma Hamilton

George Romney

Self portrait with gladioli, 1922

Gift of John Schaeffer AO 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Stephen and Angelo

George Andronicus, 1985 (printed 2018)

Gary Ede

Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018

Sir George Coles, 1935

W B McInnes

Gift of Coles Myer Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

George French Angas

George French Angas (1822-1886) was an artist and shell collector, who published many illustrations of the plants, native animals and peoples of the southern hemisphere.

2 portraits in the collection

George Baird Shaw

George Baird Shaw (1812-1883), painter and printmaker, arrived in Australia in 1856.

2 portraits in the collection

George Fordyce Story

Dr George Fordyce Story (1800-1885) was an English-born doctor who became district assistant surgeon in Van Diemen's Land.

1 portrait in the collection

George Moore, 1957

Ern McQuillan OAM

Portrait, pen and ink, brush and ink on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

George Lambert in London, c. 1912

Alf Vincent

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

George Judah Cohen

George Judah Cohen (1842-1937), banker, took over the Maitland office of his father's wholesale firm David Cohen and Co.

1 portrait in the collection

George Selth Coppin

George Coppin (1819-1906), comedian, entrepreneur and politician, cut his teeth in the world of the English itinerant theatre.

2 portraits in the collection

George Hoyningen-Huene

Baron George Hoyningen-Huene (1900–1968) was a high-profile American fashion photographer and Hollywood figure.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Hubert Wilkins

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

Frederick George Reynolds

Frederick George Reynolds was born in London, the son of a watercolourist, Frederick G Reynolds senior, who was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy.

1 portrait in the collection

George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga

Portrait, inkjet print on rag paper

George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga (1957–2007) was a Yolngu singer, activist and a founding member of the Warumpi Band.

2 portraits in the collection

George Milpurrurru, 1986

Martin van der Wal

Purchased 2005

Alfred George Stephens

Alfred George Stephens (1865–1933), editor, journalist and publisher, was born and educated in Toowoomba.

1 portrait in the collection

George Gotardo Foletta

George Gotardo Foletta CMG (1892-1973), manufacturer, worked as a travelling salesman for his father, a fancy goods commission agent, before setting up the Atlas Knitting and Spinning Mills Pty Ltd in Brunswick in 1920.

2 portraits in the collection

George Michael Prendergast

George Michael Prendergast (1854-1937), printer and premier, was born to an Irish goldminer and his wife and was apprenticed to the printer of the Pleasant Creek News in 1868.

1 portrait in the collection

George Highland, 1925

Tom Glover

Portrait, etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

George Mealmaker, 1798 (printed c. 1838)

John Kay

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

George Chow Bow, 2017

Pamela See

Portrait, papercut silhouette drawing

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019

William Morris

George Frederic Watts

Self portrait, 1846

George French Angas

Purchased 1999

Lee Lin Chin, 2004 (printed 2021)

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on paper

Gift of the artist 2021

Self portrait, 1858-1860

George Fordyce Story

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

Federal Statistician Knibbs, 1919

David Low

Portrait, ink and gouache on paper

Purchased 2011

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V)

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V), 1903

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V), 1903

Portrait, platinum photograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

George Spartels, early 1970s

Ivan Gaal

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2019

George Langley, 1918

James McBey

Portrait, conte on paper

Gift of Pat Lesslie (née Langley), in memory of George Langley and Rob Lesslie 2015

George Sands, c. 1940s

Portrait, oil on cedar panel

Purchased 2011

Portrait of George Selth Coppin, c. 1895-1899

Tom Roberts

Purchased with funds provided by Mary Isabel Murphy 2004

George Molnar, 1983

Judy Cassab AO CBE

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on masonite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

George Miller, 2002 (printed 2004)

Karin Catt

Portrait, oil on hessian laid on cardboard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

George Duncan, c. 1940

Alison Rehfisch

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Margaret Adams 1999

George Trott (George Henry Stevens (Harry) Trott, member of the 1896 Australian Cricket Team)

George Henry Stevens Trott

George Henry Stevens (Harry) Trott (1866–1917) was the captain of the Australian cricket team which toured England and then to the USA and New Zealand from June to November 1896.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Grey, c. 1845

Theresa Walker

Portrait, cast wax

Purchased 1999

George Tjungurrayi, 2002

Matthÿs Gerber

Gift of Pamela Hansford 2007. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

George Lambert, c. 1928

Annie May Moore

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

George Tjungurrayi, 2007

Portrait, inkjet print on cotton rag paper

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2020. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Herbert Benjamin George Larkin CBE

Herbert Benjamin George Larkin CBE (c. 1871- 1944), shipping administrator, came to Australia from England and joined the office of the Australian Steam Navigation Company.

1 portrait in the collection

Cardinal George Pell, 2007 (printed 2012)

David Roberts

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Sir George Houston Reid GCB GCMG KC

Sir George Houstoun Reid GCB GCMG KC (1845-1918) was Australian prime minister from August 1904 to July 1905.

3 portraits in the collection

George Bell, 1951

Louis Kahan AO

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998

George Gittoes, 1999

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

George Nicholas, 1955

Paul Fitzgerald AM

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Hilton Nicholas AM OBE 2010

George Barrington, 1820

John Chapman

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Sir George Fisher, n.d.

Louis Kahan AO

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

George Gittoes, 1991

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

George Michael Prendergast, 1926

Tom Glover

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on studio card inside studio folder

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Reverend George Brown DD, 1905

Crown Studios

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Nancy Joyce 2014

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V), 1901

Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on original studio backing card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Making Sense of Place #4 (Portrait of Professor George Seddon), 2007

Peteris Ciemitis

Portrait, watercolour and pastel on paper

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

Portrait of a beautiful mind - Adam Cullen, Blue Mountains

Portrait of a beautiful mind - Adam Cullen, Blue Mountains, 2005 (printed 2019)

Purchased with funds provided by Alan Dodge AM & Neil Archibald 2019

John Waters, 2013

Gift of the artist 2015

Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal Tribe, 1992 (printed 2009)

Gift of the artist 2010

Robyn Archer, 1990

George Gittoes AM

Gift of Robyn Archer AO 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Gulpilil (David) Dreaming - Kakadu 2006, 2006

Gift of the artist 2008

Errol Flynn, 1938 (printed 2008)

George Hurrell

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2006

Gift of Michael Desmond 2012

Tender tragedies

George Foxhill's self portraits were the subject of a small focus display at the National Portrait Gallery in 2006.

Henry Fullwood (Uncle Remus), 1919

Portrait, pencil on paper

Gift of Denis Savill 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Courage, Self-analysis and Skill

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2002

The story behind George Lambert's Self-portrait with Gladioli.

Facing Facts

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2003

Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers describes the 1922 Self-portrait with Gladioli by George Lambert.

Tony Bilson, c. 2005

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Tony Bilson 2008

Andrew Gaze, 2018

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2007

Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018

Money and swat

Andrew Sayers discusses the real cost of George Lambert's Self portrait with gladioli 1922.

Love City; George Gittoes on hilltop 2013

Man of war

Magazine article by Tedi Bills, 2016

Tedi Bills talks to George Gittoes about canvassing conflict.

Reverend John Williams, c. 1837

George Baxter

Portrait, wood engraving (Baxter print) on paper

Purchased 2012

Charles Windeyer, c. 1846-1849

George B. Goodman

Portrait, daguerreotype

Gift of the Windeyer family 2009

Anna Frances Walker, c. 1865

George Perry

Portrait, albumen print photograph, carte de visite format on paper on card

Purchased 2022

Reverend William Singleton, 1866

George Perry

Portrait, oil on cardboard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Portrait of Norman Lindsay as a student, c. 1896

George Coates

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Victor Albert George Child-Villiers

Victor Albert George Child-Villiers (1845-1915) succeeded his father George Augustus (1808-1859), 6th earl, who had only held the title for three weeks, as 7th earl of Jersey in 1859.

1 portrait in the collection

George Gregan, 1999 (printed 2001)

Peter Brew-Bevan

Purchased 2001

Western Australia (Sir Frederick Bedford)

Sir Frederick George Denham Bedford GCB GCVO

Sir Frederick George Denham Bedford GCB GCVO (1838–1913) was governor of Western Australia from 1903 to 1909.

1 portrait in the collection

George Foletta, n.d.

Sir William Dargie CBE

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

Gift of the Estate of Alice Myra Foletta 2006

The Multifarious Career of George Selth Coppin

George Selth Coppin (1819-1906) comedian, impresario and entrepreneur, was a driving force of the early Australian theatre.

George Selth Coppin, c. 1863

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Mantuwa Tjungarra George, 2021

Robert Fielding

Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2022

Sir George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, 1861

William-Wolfe Alais

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008

George Urquhart (Scotty) Allan, 1954

Max Dupain OBE

Gift of Danina Dupain Anderson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

A Premier "The New Man" [The Hon. George Briscoe Kerferd], 1874

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Andrew Gaze

'Make it fun'

Portrait story

Basketballer Andrew Gaze and photographer George Fetting.

Master of the Hunt "Steady, Gentlemen, Steady!" [Mr George Watson], 1874

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2010

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Celebrity cutpurse

Grace Carroll discusses the portrait of the late-eighteenth century gentleman pickpocket George Barrington.

Marcie Elizabeth Wilson, 1922

Portrait, pencil on paper

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

A G Stephens, c. 1910 (printed later)

Portrait, albumen photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Mr and Mrs Case, 1864

Alexander Fox and Co

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Album of portraits of family of William Taylor Macpherson

Album of portraits of family of William Taylor Macpherson, c. 1880

George S Bryant & Co, Boston

Portrait, 39 tintype photographs in an album

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the family of FW Macpherson 2012

Sir Hubert Wilkins, 1933

Irving Browning

Purchased 2009

Professor Gilbert Murray, OM, Oxford, c. 1957 (printed 2000)

David Moore

George French Angas, Thomas McLean

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.

South Australian Illustrated (Plate 35), 1847

H.B.G Larkin, 1928

L E. Reynolds

Portrait, albumen photograph on cabinet card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

George Trott (George Henry Stevens (Harry) Trott, member of the 1896 Australian Cricket Team), 1896

H Parker Rolfe

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

The sculptor (George Lambert and Arthur Murch), c. 1929

Harold Cazneaux

Purchased 2015

George Hoyningen-Huene and Jessie the Barmaid, 1937

Max Dupain OBE

John Cochran after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Gift of Danina Dupain Anderson 2021. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Lt. Genrl. the Rt Honble. Sir George Murray G.C.B., G.C.H. &c.

Lt. Genrl. the Rt Honble. Sir George Murray G.C.B., G.C.H. &c., 1838

Dickinson Monteath Studio

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

George Foletta, n.d.

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Alice Myra Foletta 2006

Sir George Reid, c. 1895

Nelson Illingworth

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

The Memoirs of George Barrington, 1790

an unknown artist, J Bird & Simmonds

Portrait, octavo in fours, with an engraved frontispiece

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008

H.M. King George V at his desk, c. 1921

E.O. Hoppé, Raphael Tuck and Sons Ltd

Portrait, postcard print on card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2020

Jack Lang, c. 1930-1940

George Finey

Portrait, collage of coloured paper, pencil on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Charles Warman Roberts, 1878

George Baird Shaw

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Thoms family 2011

Annie Roberts, 1878

George Baird Shaw

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2012

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Reg, Lesley, Glen and Paul Thoms 2011

Real close

Peter Ciemitis breached regulations when creating the portrait of the polymath environmental scientist George Seddon.

Francis Russell Nixon, c. 1845-1855

an unknown artist after George Richmond

Portrait, copperplate engraving, heightened with China white on buff paper

Purchased 2009

Sir Joseph Banks, 1811

Portrait, soft ground etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Two painters

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2007

Chris Chapman explains how Matthys Gerber bridges the gap between abstraction and portraiture.

Robert Henderson Croll, 1927

Frederick George Reynolds

Portrait, oil on canvas on board

Gift of Grietje Croll in memory of her late husband Robert Devereaux Croll and with the endorsement of his daughter Helen Croll 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Alexander Dalrymple, 1809

Portrait, soft ground etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family 2012

The Right Honourable Lord Viscount Melbourne

The Right Honourable Lord Viscount Melbourne, 1839

Charles Turner after Sir George Hayter

Farmer and Company Limited

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

George Reid paperweight, c. 1910

Portrait, painted cast iron

Purchased 2001

George Reid paperweight, c. 1910

Farmer and Company Limited

Portrait, painted cast iron

Purchased 2006

George Burarrwanga, Warumpi Band, 1984 (printed 2021)

Juno Gemes

Purchased 2021

Sir George Ferguson Bowen, c. 1873

Bardwell's Royal Studio

Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009

Vice-Royalty. "A Quoter of Poetry" [George Bowen, Governor of Victoria], 1873

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Warumpi Band, Sydney Opera House, 1984 (printed 2021)

Juno Gemes

George Beldam, Sun Electric Engraving Company

Purchased 2021

Victor Trumper, 1905

Portrait, photogravure on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009

Professor George Dracoulis, 1996

Robin Wallace-Crabbe, Dianne Fogwell

Portrait, etching

Gift of the artist 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

David Brown Dignam [and] George Barrington drawn from the life

David Brown Dignam [and] George Barrington drawn from the life, 1777

an unknown artist, The London Magazine

Portrait, copperplate engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

The Right Honourable Charles Lord Hawkesbury, Chancellor of the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster

The Right Honourable Charles Lord Hawkesbury, Chancellor of the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster, 1788

John Murphy after George Romney

Magazine article by Gareth Knapman, 2017

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

The Conciliation, 1840 by Benjamin Duterrau

The art of conciliation

Gareth Knapman explores the politics and opportunism behind the portraits of Tasmania’s Black War.

The Right Honourable Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White Squadron

The Right Honourable Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White Squadron, 1802

William Ridley, Bunney & Gold after George Romney

Goupil & Cie after Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples, George Barrable

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

Australia v England, 1887

Portrait, photogravure on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Australian Cricket (George John Bonnor), 1884

Carlo Pellegrini, Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Vanity Fair Magazine

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2002

Purchased 2013

All in the Family

Portrait launch of Major-General Paul Cullen AC CBE DSO and Bar ED (Rtd) and George Judah Cohen.

Statesmen No. 83 "By birth a man, by inheritance a Marquis and a Governor by his Sovereign's favour, he fills all his positions with credit" (Marquis of Normanby), 1871

Carlo Pellegrini, Vanity Fair Magazine

Blood, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office after John Smart

Gift of Mr Ronald Walker 2001

Sir George Young Kt, Admiral of the White Squadron, 1814

Sir Leslie Ward, Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Vanity Fair Magazine

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

New South Wales (Earl of Jersey Victor Albert George Child-Villiers), 1890

Sir Leslie Ward, Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Vanity Fair Magazine

Gift of Mr Ronald Walker 2001

Western Australia (Sir Frederick Bedford), 1903

Portrait, albumen silver photograph

Purchased 2015

The First Ministry under Responsible Government in New South Wales

The First Ministry under Responsible Government in New South Wales, 1856

Freeman Brothers

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009

Profile of a marriage

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

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

George Rose, 1811

Giovanni Vendramini, T Cadell & W Davies after William Evans, Sir William Beechey

Thomas Morris, M N. Bates, Joseph C. Stadler after George Garrard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Woburn Sheepshearing, 1811

Portrait, aquatint with stipple and etching and engraving, hand coloured on chine colle on paper laid down on cotton stretched over wooden strainer

Purchased 2018

William Hodges RA, 1808 (dated 1810)

Portrait, etching on paper

Purchased 2010

William Westall, 1854

Portrait, etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

George and Jemima Billet with family, c. 1852

C.H.T. Costantini

Purchased 2016

The Sands Brothers, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Set of 129 Royal Christmas Cards and three miscellaneous items, 1951-2001

Portrait, offset print (tipped in), letter press (greeting), pen and ink (signature), embossed (royal emblem) on cardboard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patricia Tryon Macdonald 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Andree Johnston-Bell, c. 1945

Walter Langhammer

Brainwave interactive artwork by George Khut

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Jocelyne MacLeod 2008

Behind your eyes, between your ears

Previous exhibition, 2016

As the subject changes the quality of their attention and mental focus, the portrait transforms, both appearance and sound.

George and Donny, 2008

by Justin Spiers

George Foxhill

Self Portraits

Foxhill's portraits are more concerned with describing an emotional and psychological state than the surface topography of the human face.

Contact sheet (Virginia Fraser, Carol Jerrems, Ron Johnston)

Carol Jerrems

Andree Johnson-Bell

Andree Johnston-Bell (1917-2007), pioneer publisher of articles on Australian antiques, was born in China of Belgian parents and educated in Belgium.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of Dr Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster

Portrait of Dr Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster, c. 1780

Jean Francois Rigaud

Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family, the Ian Potter Foundation and John Schaeffer AO 2009

Andrew Gaze, 2018

by George Fetting

Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018

Lord George Stuart, 9th Seigneur of Aubigny

Sir Anthony van Dyck

Nothing black and white about the Greys

It's Complicated

Marriage: a prolonged disaster

Angus Young

Angus Young (b. 1955), guitarist and songwriter, was a founding member of Australia's most successful ever band, AC/DC.

3 portraits in the collection

Cullabaa, native of Lake George, Five Islands tribe

Cullabaa, native of Lake George, Five Islands tribe, 1836

William Fernyhough

Carlo Pellegrini, Vanity Fair Magazine

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Robert Edwards AO 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Men of the Day No. 27 "La Reyne le veult" (Sir John George Shaw-Lefevre), 1871

Purchased 2015

Sir William Beechey

Sir William Beechey, portrait painter and pupil of Johann Zoffany, was greatly influenced by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Arthur Coles, c. 1971

Sir William Dargie CBE

Gift of Coles Myer Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Suze DeMarchi, Baby Animals, St George Leagues Club, 1991

Tony Mott

Dinkie is Thom's Friend

Thom Roberts

Norm Provan

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

Norm Provan (1932-2021), footballer and coach, played junior rugby league for Sutherland and trialled unsuccessfully for Eastern Suburbs before being signed by the St George Dragons in 1951.

1 portrait in the collection

Death mask of George Melville courtesy of National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Old Melbourne Gaol Collection

A colourful story from Sideshow Alley

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

From infamous bushranger to oyster shop display, curator Jo Gilmour explores the life of George Melville.

Bon Scott & Angus Young, Atlanta, Georgia

Bon Scott & Angus Young, Atlanta, Georgia, 1978 (printed 2010)

Rennie Ellis

Purchased 2010

London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company

The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company was founded in 1854 by George Swan Nottage.

2 portraits in the collection

Harry Kewell, 2006

Robin Sellick

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006

Frank McIlwraith

Frank McIlwraith was the London representative for the Australian periodical Smith's Weekly in the late 1930s.

1 portrait in the collection

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary)

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary), 1903

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary), 1903

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary), 1903

Magazine article by Peter Brew-Bevan, 2004

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

In the most correct style

Nearest & Dearest

Desirable outcomes, undesirable origins

In Sync

Peter Brew-Bevan discusses two experiences where his plans for his portraits produced surprising results.

Sir Edgar Barton ‘EB’ Coles

December 2007 - February 2008

Sir Edgar Barton ‘EB’ Coles (1899-1981) was the longest-serving chief executive of the Coles retail group.

2 portraits in the collection

Portrait 26

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Matthew Perceval, Tom Uren, George Tjungurrayi, silhouette portraiture, pop art portraits and more.

Harry Kewell

September - November 2006

Harry Kewell (b. 1978), Australia’s greatest ever soccer export, attended Sydney’s Westfields Sports High School and the NSW Soccer Academy before trialling with English club Leeds United in 1995, at the age of 16.

2 portraits in the collection

Portrait 21

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Margaret Cameron, the 'Truth and Likeness' exhibition, Reg Mombassa, Patrick White, George Foxhill and more.

Jessie Whyte

Jessie Whyte (née Walker, 1779–1864). Born in Berwickshire, Scotland, Jessie married George Whyte (d.

1 portrait in the collection

Mary Ware

Jeremiah Ware (1792–1878) arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1822 with his wife, Mary (née Brooks, c.

1 portrait in the collection

Jeremiah Ware

Jeremiah Ware (1792–1878) arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1822 with his wife, Mary (née Brooks, c.

1 portrait in the collection

G. H. Dancey

Archived media releases 2016

George Henry Dancey began his career as a stained glass designer in the UK and Australia, but ended it as the chief cartoonist for Melbourne Punch over 23 years to 1919..

1 portrait in the collection

Artist in residence creates portraits using brainwave zctivity

29 June 2016

Digital media artist, George Khut, is creating a spectacular form of digital portraiture involving public participants.

William Evans

The draftsman and engraver William Evans reproduced many of Sir William Beechey’s portraits including that of King George..

3 portraits in the collection

Portrait 4

June - August 2002

September - November 2004

This issue of Portrait Magazine features articles on Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, George Lambert's self-portrait, Professor Peter Doherty, the man behind the Dr. Who theme, and more.

Portrait 13

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Nancy Wake, Jon Campbell's portrait of Paul Kelly, George Selth Coppin, Henri Cartier-Bresson and more.

Madame Praeger

Laura Praeger (née Blundell) was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and was about twelve years old when her father brought his family to Australia, settling in Queensland.

1 portrait in the collection

Adela R. Walker

Adela Russell Walker (1847–1932), the youngest of her parents' thirteen children, was born in Longford and was 22 when she married George Coleridge Nixon, who was the son of Francis Russell Nixon – an amateur artist and Anglican Bishop of Tasmania from 1843 to 1862.

1 portrait in the collection

Thom Roberts with Burt the Oscar Train 2017 and cushion cover

The Immersive World of Thom Roberts

Current exhibition

A free exhibition of over 100 works by contemporary Australian artist Thom Roberts. Step into his world and experience bold paintings, animation and installation works where people and places intertwine.

Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool

Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool (1729–1808), statesman, was educated at Oxford and entered parliament in 1761.

1 portrait in the collection

James Heath

James Heath commenced an apprenticeship with an engraver named Joseph Collyer at the age of fourteen.

2 portraits in the collection

Jemima Bellette

George Billett (also Bellett, Bellette and Billet, 1812–1885) was a farmer and landowner, an early settler of Sorell in Tasmania, and the son of two ex-convicts.

1 portrait in the collection

Queen Mary

George Frederick Ernest Albert, The Duke of Cornwall and York and later King George V (1865-1936), was the son of Edward VII, the man for whom the Edwardian era was named.

3 portraits in the collection

Bon Scott

Ronald 'Bon' Scott (1946-1980) had come to Australia with his family in 1952, aged six, had lived in Melbourne and Fremantle, where he joined a pipe band; had dropped out of school at fifteen; and had spent some time in custody.

1 portrait in the collection

John Davis

Alan Davies' and Peter Stanbury's The Mechanical Eye in Australia lists Sydney photographer John Davis (life dates unknown) as having a carte-de visite studio on King Street, and as working from addresses on Pitt and George Streets between 1870 and 1873..

1 portrait in the collection

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (1900–2002) was born the Honourable Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon.

2 portraits in the collection

Rayner Hoff, 1924

Harold Cazneaux

Gift of Richard King 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Family portrait

Fiona Bowring

NPG Wellington, Edinburgh and Canberra, 10th March 2021

15 minutes of frame

Recorded virtual programs

Delve into the lives, loves and labour of the world’s most prominent portrait galleries in this international conversation series.

Sam Haskins

Portraits & Other Stories

Haskins is known for his poetic combinations of images and this exhibition of 'extended' portraits builds on this approach.

Jessie Sinden

Previous exhibition, 2023

Jessie Sinden was a barmaid at the Brooklyn Hotel on George Street in Sydney when she was 'discovered' by Baron George Hoyningen-Huene, a high-profile American fashion photographer and Hollywood figure.

1 portrait in the collection

The Cosmopolitans

In Gallery Two

Spanning the 1880s to the 1930s, this collection display celebrates the innovations in art – and life – introduced by the generation of Australians who travelled to London and Paris for experience and inspiration in the decades either side of 1900.

Sir Thomas Lawrence

Portrait, etching, hand coloured on paper

Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) was one of the leading portrait painters of the Georgian era.

8 portraits in the collection

The great South Sea caterpillar transformed into a Bath Butterfly (Sir Joseph Banks)

The great South Sea caterpillar transformed into a Bath Butterfly (Sir Joseph Banks), 1795 (printed 1851)

James Gillray

Gift of Douglas Stewart Fine Books 2013

The Australian Cricket Team 1882

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

Gail Kelly

Portrait, charcoal on paper

Gail Kelly (b. 1956), former banking executive, was born in South Africa and gained degrees in arts and education from the University of Cape Town before working as a high-school Latin teacher.

1 portrait in the collection

Julian Rossi Ashton, 1933

Eric Wilson

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Philip Bacon AM 2012

Robert Kermode

Previous exhibition, 2017

Robert Quayle Kermode (1812-1870), politician, was born on the Isle of Man and educated at Castletown.

1 portrait in the collection

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017

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.

Jean Goldberg

Jean Nethercote (now Goldberg) first met Ola Cohn when she took a life class in Cohn's studio in the mid-50s.

1 portrait in the collection

Gail Kelly, 2018

Paul Newton

Commissioned with funds provided by Westpac Group and Optus 2018

Rayner Hoff

Portrait, coloured chalk on artist board

George Rayner Hoff (1894-1937), sculptor, was born in England and trained at the Royal College of Art, London.

2 portraits in the collection

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

Charles Wheeler

Purchased 2019

Alfie Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

Russell Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

Dave Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

Clem Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

The Gladiators (Norm Provan and Arthur Summons), 1963 (printed 1970s)

John O'Gready

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Martha Knox, c. 1855

Portrait, daguerreotype

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010

Meredith Rogers

Meredith Rogers, theatre director and academic, studied at the University of Melbourne and worked between 1974 and 1979 with Kiffy Rubbo at the Ewing and George Paton Galleries.

1 portrait in the collection

Adelaide, Königin von Grossbritranien u Irland

Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen

Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen (1792–1849) was the consort of King William IV of England.

1 portrait in the collection

Shane Balcomb aka. Sasha Trajik-Mole, drag queen, 2011

by David Kelly

Julian Ashton CBE

Julian Rossi Ashton CBE (1851-1942), art teacher, artist and critic, trained in art in London and at the Académie Julian in Paris before coming to Australia to work on the Illustrated Australian News in 1878.

4 portraits in the collection

Johann Zoffany

Johann Zoffany, painter of portraits and conversation pieces, grew up in the court of the Prince von Thurn und Taxis in Germany, where his father was employed.

1 portrait in the collection

Tom Durkin

Thomas Coleman Durkin trained at the Williamstown School of Design and started work in Melbourne as an apprentice to an engraver and then a jeweller.

27 portraits in the collection

Icons Syndicate

Listed alphabetically

Honour board

Lady Maisie Drysdale

Lady Maisie Drysdale (1915–2001), children's librarian and artists' muse, developed an interest in art as a child, and attended both the University of Melbourne and George Bell's art school.

1 portrait in the collection

Julian Ashton Life Class, 1920

Harold Cazneaux

Purchased 2015

Alfie Sands, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Clem Sands, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Russell Sands, n.d.

Purchased 2011

Annie May Moore

Annie May Moore (1881-1931) was born in New Zealand and studied at the Elam School of Art and Design in Auckland.

5 portraits in the collection

Geoff Cousins, 2017

David Naseby

Gift of Geoff Cousins AM 2007

Thomas Forster Knox

The Knox's third son, Thomas Forster Knox (1849-1919) followed his father and older brother into business, and became prominent in the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Lina Bryans

Previous exhibition, 2011

Lina Bryans OAM (1909-2000), artist, was born into a prosperous Melbourne family and grew up moving freely between Toorak and Europe.

3 portraits in the collection

Tea time, c.1898–1902 by Rupert Bunny (1864–1947)

Impressions

Painting light and life

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.

The Swiss Studios, Sydney

The Swiss Studios opened in King Street, Sydney in early 1898, operating from a building described as a 'pleasing reminder of one of those delightful old Swiss chalets, which one always associates with Alpine travel.' The elaborate establishment boasted a first-floor reception room, 'beautifully decorated and luxuriously furnished', 'tastefully arranged dressing rooms, one for ladies and the other for gentlemen', and a 'lofty, cool and well-lit gallery' where 'the best artists in the photographic line' were at work.

1 portrait in the collection

Johnny Warren OAM MBE

Johnny Warren OAM MBE (1943-2004), footballer, football administrator and commentator, grew up in southern Sydney where he played his first games of soccer, as his game was then known, for the Botany Methodists.

1 portrait in the collection

Mary MacQueen

Mary MacQueen studied for a year at the George Bell School after the war, and for another year at RMIT a decade later.

2 portraits in the collection

Concession and discount policy

Plan your visit

Members ticket discounts, accepted concession cards and special entry.

The Photographic Society of Victoria, Melbourne

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

Robert T. Carter

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2004

Robert Thomas Carter (1843–1917) was a leading Sydney cabinetmaker and furniture warehouseman, and later an antique dealer.

2 portraits in the collection

Hop, skip, shoot

Former NPG Deputy Director, Simon Elliott talks with Ern McQuillan about his life and career as a sports photographer.

Martha Knox

Magazine article by Jessica Smith, 2009

Martha Knox (née Rutledge, d. 1903), was the sister of merchant, landowner and banker William Rutledge.

1 portrait in the collection

Sketches and sermons

Jessica Smith looks at the 'fetching' portrait of Tasmania's first Anglican Bishop, Francis Russell Nixon by George Richmond

A. Henry Fullwood

Albert Henry Fullwood (1863-1930), artist, trained in art in his native Birmingham before moving to Sydney in 1883, aged 20.

1 portrait in the collection

William Barak at work on the drawing ‘Ceremony’ at Coranderrk

Beruk

Beruk (William Barak) (1824-1903), an elder of the Wurundjeri clan of the Woi-worung, was the most famous Aboriginal person in Victoria in the 1890s.

1 portrait in the collection

Victor Greenhalgh

A Portrait of Colonial Australia

Victor Greenhalgh (1900-1983) was a sculptor and teacher who greatly influenced tertiary art education; he was one of the first Victorian sculptors to adopt a modern style.

5 portraits in the collection

Bungaree, late chief of the Broken Bay tribe, Sydney

Heads of the People

Previous exhibition, 2000

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

Autumn evenings golden glow, c.1942 by Hilda Rix Nicholas

Paris to Monaro

Pleasures from the studio of Hilda Rix Nicholas

Previous exhibition, 2013

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.

Dr John Yu

Portrait story

An interview with the acclaimed pediatrician Dr. John Yu who describes the process of having his portrait sculpture created by artist Ah Xian.

Kiffy Rubbo

Kiffy Rubbo (1944-1980) was director of the Ewing and George Paton Gallery at the University of Melbourne from 1973 to 1980.

1 portrait in the collection

Margaret Robertson

Margaret Robertson (née Whyte, 1811–1866) was the daughter of settlers George and Jessie Whyte, who emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land from Scotland in 1832.

4 portraits in the collection

Tommy Smith

Tommy Smith (1916-1998), racehorse trainer, was born at Jembaicumbene near Braidwood, NSW.

2 portraits in the collection

Francis (Pat) Quinn

Francis (Pat) Quinn (1914–2010), showman and hypnotist, was born in Christchurch, New Zealand.

2 portraits in the collection

Sir William John Macleay

Sir William John Macleay (1820-1891), pastoralist, politician, collector and promoter of science, had just begun to study medicine in his native Scotland when family circumstances dictated his migration to New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

Who's that?

Michael Desmond discusses the iconic picture of two Rugby League players which became known as 'The Gladiators'.

William Daniell

Faces of the Twentieth Century

William Daniell (1769-1837) worked mostly as a topographical draftsman and engraver in aquatint.

4 portraits in the collection

Karsh

Previous exhibition, 1998

Yousuf Karsh - the most famous portrait photographer in the world - has photographed the statesmen, artists, literary and scientific figures who have defined the 20th century and shaped our lives, In this, his 90th year, the National Portrait Gallery is thrilled to present an exhibition of Karsh's photography of 20th century figures.

Falk Studios

Celebrating 100 years of the Historic Memorials Collection

Falk Studios was established by Melbourne-born photographer H. Walter Barnett in George Street, Sydney in 1885.

5 portraits in the collection

Of Kings and men

Previous exhibition, 2011

This display celebrates 100 years of the Historic Memorials Collection and its role in commissioning portraits of parliamentary and judicial figures in Australia.

Amanda King

Previous exhibition, 2005

Amanda King is a Sydney-based visual artist and producer and director of film documentaries.

1 portrait in the collection

The World of Thea Proctor

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

Samuel Shelley

Samuel Shelley entered the Royal Academy Schools as a seventeen year-old in 1774 and exhibited at the Academy regularly from this time until 1804.

2 portraits in the collection

Henry Meyer

Henry Hoppner Meyer, thought to be the son of an engraver, was a nephew of the painter John Hoppner.

2 portraits in the collection

Kiffy Rubbo 2, 1979, 1979 (printed 2012)

Robert Rooney

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Janine Burke, c. 1980, 1980 (printed 2012)

Robert Rooney

Portrait, ambrotype, hand coloured on glass plate with black paint backing

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Mr and Mrs R. T. Carter, c. 1863

Milligan Bros (Studio)

Gift of Mr and Mrs James Bain 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Alan Sumner MBE

Alan Sumner MBE (1911-1994) was a painter, printmaker, teacher and stained glass designer.

1 portrait in the collection

Thea Proctor, c. 1896

Gift of Thea Bryant (Proctor) 2005

Portrait 55

Summer 2016-2017

Explore convict art, photography by Ruth Hollick and Collier Schorr, an interview with neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, portraiture on money, and more!

Lady Eliza Lucy Grey

Portrait, pastel on paper

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

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, 1981

Michael Shannon

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Les Rowe 1998
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Self portrait, 1921

Thea Proctor

Purchased with funds provided by the Ross family in memory of Noel and Enid Eliot 2013

Shane Dye

Portrait, cast bronze, patinated

Shane Dye (b. 1966), jockey, was born in Matamata, New Zealand, and served his apprenticeship in New Zealand before coming to Australia in 1985.

2 portraits in the collection

Bust of Frank McIlwraith, 1937

Barbara Tribe

Gift of the Estate of the late Barbara Tribe 2009

Margaret Robertson, c. 1852

Portrait, ambrotype, hand coloured

Gift of Fiona Turner (née Robertson) and John Robertson 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Richard von Marientreu

Portrait, albumen photograph on carte de visite

Richard von Marientreu was born in Poland and attended military academies in Cracow and Vienna before leaving for Prague, where he studied at the Academy of Painting.

2 portraits in the collection

The first Australian first-class cricket team to tour England and North America

The first Australian first-class cricket team to tour England and North America, 1878

A & G Taylor

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

A & G Taylor

Photographers Andrew Taylor and George Taylor opened their first studio in Cannon Street in east London in 1866.

1 portrait in the collection

Adrian Lawlor

Adrian Lawlor, critic and artist, came to Australia from his native England at the age of about twenty.

2 portraits in the collection

Prime Ministers

On the day before the Hon. E. G. Whitlam, AC, QC, died last month, at the great age of 98, there were seven former prime ministers of Australia still living, plus the incumbent Mr. Abbott – eight in all.

James Cassius Williamson

James Cassius Williamson (1845-1913), actor and theatrical entrepreneur, worked and performed in theatres in his native USA before coming to Victoria under contract to George Selth Coppin in 1874.

1 portrait in the collection

David Campese AM

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2008

David Ian Campese (b. 1962) is the world's leading representative rugby union footballer, having played 101 tests for Australia between 1982 and 1996.

1 portrait in the collection

Lionel Rose, World Champion Bantam Weight Boxer before departing to the USA to defend his title

The champs

Two lively portrait photographs reflect the agility of their subjects: world champion Australian sportsmen Lionel Rose and Anthony Mundine.

Betina Fauvel-Ogden

Betina Fauvel-Ogden was born in Adelaide and lives and works in Melbourne.

2 portraits in the collection

Noel Fraser Hickey, 1957

Nancy Menetrey

Gift of the artist 2021

Arthur Summons

Portrait, steel engraving with later hand-colouring on paper

Arthur Summons (1935-2020), footballer, played fly-half in ten rugby union test matches for the Wallabies between 1956 and 1960 before joining rugby league's Western Suburbs Magpies in 1960.

1 portrait in the collection

Wylie, 1840-1841

Robert Neill

Purchased 2018

Portrait jug of Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1925-1928

Ashtead Potters Limited, Surrey, UK, Percy Metcalfe

Portrait, glazed ceramic

Purchased 2006

Karin Catt

Previous exhibition, 2005

Karin Catt grew up in Newcastle, where she began taking photographs of touring bands while a schoolgirl, and also in London and Hong Kong.

9 portraits in the collection

Peter Brew-Bevan Portraits

In this exhibition Sydney based photographer Peter Brew-Bevan brings together an intimate collection of works that highlight his passion for the genre of portraiture over the last 10 years

fresh from the Channel Fleet (Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson)

Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson GCB GCMG

Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson GCB GCMG (1843–1910) was appointed governor of New South Wales in January 1902 having distinguished himself in the course of various conflicts as an officer of the Royal Navy.

1 portrait in the collection

Nick Enright AM

Nick Enright (1950-2003), playwright and screenwriter, attended Sydney University and the New York University School of the Arts before establishing himself as a dramatist with plays such as Summer Rain and Mongrels.

2 portraits in the collection

John Schaeffer AO

Portrait, conté crayon and charcoal on paper

John Schaeffer AO (1940–2020), businessman, connoisseur and philanthropist, was a founding benefactor of the National Portrait Gallery.

1 portrait in the collection

Ina Gregory, c. 1895

E. Phillips Fox

Purchased 2012

Margaret Anderson GM

Margaret Anderson GM (1915–1995) served with the Australian Army Nursing Service during the Second World War in Singapore.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait (Full Length in front of Easel)

Hugh Ramsay

Hugh Ramsay (1877-1906), painter, was born in Scotland but arrived in Australia as a baby.

3 portraits in the collection

Lowe Kong Meng

Lowe Kong Meng (1831–1888), merchant, was born and grew up in the British colony of Penang and came to Melbourne in 1853.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait in plus fours, c. 1939 (cast 2003)

Lyndon Dadswell CMG

Portrait, cast bronze

Purchased 2004

Matthew Reilly

Matthew Reilly (b. 1974) is a successful writer of popular fiction novels, characterised by suspenseful narratives and futuristic scenarios.

1 portrait in the collection

Ina Gregory

Georgina ‘Ina’ Gregory (1874-1964) grew up with her sister Ada at Rosedale, her family home in East St Kilda.

1 portrait in the collection

David Jones

David Jones (1793-1873), merchant, began his retail career in Pembrokeshire and London before emigrating to Sydney via Hobart.

1 portrait in the collection

Crown Studios

The Crown Studio was a Sydney-based firm situated on the corner of Market and George streets.

3 portraits in the collection

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool

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

Study of male ballet dancers standing in a line

Study of male ballet dancers standing in a line, 2007

Portrait, charcoal and pastel on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Portrait of Jill, 2021

Graeme Drendel

Portrait, oil on board

Gift of the artist 2023

Lyndon Dadswell, with his sculpture 'Native'

Lyndon Dadswell CMG

Lyndon Dadswell CMG (1908-1986) studied at the Julian Ashton School before working with Rayner Hoff from 1926 to 1929 and Paul Montford from 1929 to 1935.

3 portraits in the collection

John Kaldor AO

John Kaldor, textile designer and manufacturer, was born in Hungary. He came to Australia with his family in 1948.

1 portrait in the collection

Henry Samuel Sadd

Henry Sadd was born in London and exhibited engravings there before emigrating to the USA some time around 1840.

8 portraits in the collection

The New Arrivals at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art

Peter Purves Smith

Archived media releases 2017

Peter Purves Smith (1912–1949), artist, went to Geelong Grammar with his lifelong friend Russell Drysdale.

2 portraits in the collection

Richard Morecroft & Alison Mackay, 2016 by Gary Grealy

Gary Grealy wins National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017

31 March 2017

After months of anticipation, the winner for the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 has been announced with renowned Sydney portrait photographer Gary Grealy taking out the award. George Fetting, guest judge for the 2017 Prize, was entranced with the evocative nature of the winning portrait Richard Morecroft and Alison Mackay.

Neville Gruzman AM

Neville Gruzman AM (1925–2005), architect and lecturer, was born in Sydney, the son of immigrants of Russian heritage.

1 portrait in the collection

Ken Done, 1987

Rennie Ellis

Purchased 2006

David Malangi Daymirringu

David Malangi Daymirringu (1927-1999), Manharrngu, bark painter, printer and designer, was born at Mulanga, near the mouth of the Glyde River, just before Christian missionaries arrived on the nearby island of Milingimbi.

1 portrait in the collection

A very great and stimulating thrill

It's Complicated

Just good friends?

Horatio S. Wills

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

2 portraits in the collection

Stable Scene with Shane Dye, 2000

Noel McKenna

Gift of the artist 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Longest reign

Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest-reigning British sovereign

Samuel Woolf

Australian Athletes in Focus

Samuel Johnson Woolf, American painter, lithographer and illustrator, was born in New York City and named after the English essayist Samuel Johnson.

1 portrait in the collection

Flash

Ludwig Lang after Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

Introduction The National Portrait Gallery’s photographic exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus explores various interpretations of Australian sporting men and women.

Lowe Kong Meng, c. 1887

Portrait, tinted lithograph on paper

Purchased 2015

Charles Joseph La Trobe

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.

3 portraits in the collection

Professor Leslie Wilkinson, 1970

Anthony Browell

Francois Verheyden, Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Vanity Fair Magazine

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Fetteresso (Sir Robert Duff), 1883

Purchased 2015

Miss Florrie Ford (Christmas pantomime with toy cat)

Florrie Forde

Ben Hall and his gang outdone, 6 February 1865

Florrie Forde (1875–1940), singer and music hall performer, was born in Melbourne and was sixteen when she sang publicly for the first time, in Sydney, in late 1891.

9 portraits in the collection

Percy, Reginald, Monty and George Faithfull, undated by Henry Dorner. Image courtesy the National Museum of Australia.

An affray which deserves particular mention

Bushranger Ben Hall and his cronies held around 40 people hostage in a pub north-west of Goulburn, telling their captives ‘don’t be alarmed; we only came here for a bit of fun’.

Captain Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders (1774–1814), was one of the world’s most accomplished navigators.

2 portraits in the collection

Dr Jill Orr

Dr Jill Orr (born 1952) is a Melbourne-born contemporary artist, whose performance-based practice has continued to interrogate the environmental concerns since the 1970s.

1 portrait in the collection

Study of female ballet dancers, 2007

Portrait, charcoal and pastel on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Study of a pair of ballet dancers, 2007

Portrait, charcoal and pastel on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Billy Hughes paperweight, n.d.

Portrait, cast iron, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ric Techow and Jenny Techow-Coleman in memory of Roy and Bet Techow 2001

Jim Rolon

New Jersey-born Jim Rolon (b. 1956) began working as a photographer for a family portrait company in his twenties.

6 portraits in the collection

The Australian Tom Thumb (John David Armstrong)

The Australian Tom Thumb (John David Armstrong), c. 1880

J D. Cooper

Purchased 2014

Adam Knott

Adam Knott (b. 1966) began taking photographs for local newspapers as a schoolboy in St George, South Sydney.

7 portraits in the collection

David Foster OAM

David Foster OAM (b. 1957), champion axeman, is the most successful competitor in the history of the sport of woodchopping.

1 portrait in the collection

Norman Lindsay

Now on display in Gallery Two

Norman Lindsay (1879-1969), artist, cartoonist, and writer, came from a family that produced five artists.

14 portraits in the collection

The Cosmopolitans

Portrait, pastel and charcoal on paper

Disillusion self portrait, 1983

Mary MacQueen

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Robin MacQueen 2007

Roy de Maistre CBE

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

Self portrait, 1911

Evelyn Chapman

Gift of Pamela Thalben-Ball 2007

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was of the most important photographers of the nineteenth century.

1 portrait in the collection

Governor Sir Robert Duff with Lady Duff, Lord Hopetoun and Vice-Regal Party

Sir Robert William Duff

Sir Robert William Duff (1835–1895) was governor of New South Wales from May 1893 until March 1895.

2 portraits in the collection

Buckley discovering himself to the early settlers

William Buckley

Carlo Pellegrini, Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Vanity Fair Magazine

William Buckley (1780-1856), known as 'the wild white man', was transported for life in 1802 for receiving stolen cloth.

1 portrait in the collection

Round the World (Thomas Brassey), 1877

Portrait, cast plaster, patinated on wooden base

Purchased 2015

Alfred Hill, 1936

Rayner Hoff

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2000

William Francis King, 'The Flying Pieman'

William Francis King, 'The Flying Pieman', c. 1869

John Davis

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

Gift of the family of FW Macpherson 2010

Jane Franklin, c. 1866-1875

an unknown artist after Thomas Bock

Portrait, carved marble relief

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Charles Kean

S Calvert, Gibbs, Shallard and Co after O.R. Campbell

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

Buckley discovering himself to the early settlers, 1869

Portrait, colour wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2009

Thomas Phillips

Thomas Phillips was born in Dudley, Warwickshire and initially trained as a glass painter before moving to London, aged 20, with a letter of introduction to the painter Benjamin West.

6 portraits in the collection

Gustavus Brooke

Gustavus Vaughan Brooke (1818-1866), actor, was a seasoned theatre performer by his early teens; at fourteen, he played Richard III.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Asher Joel

Portrait, oil on canvas board

Sir Asher Joel (1912-1998), public relations entrepreneur and state politician, started out as a copyboy at Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of an Artist (Self portrait), 1944

David Strachan

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Rt. Honourable Lord Hawkesbury, 1808

Edward Scriven, J B Ball & J DeCamp after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

Nick Enright, c. 1976 (printed 2004)

Robert McFarlane

N Schiavonetti after Thomas Phillips

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society

Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, 1812

Portrait, line engraving on paper

Purchased 2010

John Newcombe and family, 1973

Lewis Morley

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

John Schaeffer AO - art collector and philanthropist, 2014

Evert Ploeg

Purchased with funds provided by Harold Mitchell AC 2015

Billy Cook and Pride of Egypt, 1954

Ern McQuillan OAM

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004

Talma Studios, Sydney

Charles Turner after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Talma Studios opened in Sydney in March 1899 in a George Street premises next door to the GPO.

1 portrait in the collection

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, 1827

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Icons

Parliament House

Touring exhibition, 2019

When a portrait communicates determination and individuality as boldly as these do, it has the potential to become an iconic image. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.

Warumpi Band

Previous exhibition, 2010

The Warumpi Band burst onto the Australian music scene in 1984 with the release of their first album Big Name, No Blankets.

2 portraits in the collection

Rt Hon. Sir Robert Menzies, c. 1962

Victor Greenhalgh

Portrait, cast bronze

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lady Bunting in honour of Sir John Bunting and the Menzies Foundation 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Jenny Sages

Paths to Portraiture

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

The Tichborne Claimant (Arthur Orton), c. 1872

Maull & Co Photographers

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Julia Matthews

Julia Matthews (1842-1876), actress and singer, came to Australia as a girl with her parents, and made her debut at Sydney's Royal Victoria Theatre in 1854, aged twelve.

1 portrait in the collection

Eric Thake

Eric Thake (1904-1982), printmaker, painter and photographer, trained at the National Gallery School and the George Bell School and showed with the Contemporary Group in Melbourne between 1932 and 1938 before serving as an official war artist in the RAAF.

7 portraits in the collection

Collection: Icons

Volume One

Centenary of ANZAC

Just now we pause to mark the centenary of ANZAC, the day when, together with British, other imperial and allied forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli at the start of the ill-starred Dardanelles campaign.

Dorothy Gordon OBE

Dorothy Gordon (Jenner) OBE, ‘Andrea’ (1891-1985), actress, dressmaker, stuntwoman, journalist, radio broadcaster and charity fundraiser, grew up on a property near Narrabri and attended boarding school in Sydney before gaining a part as a chorus girl in Girl in a Train in Melbourne in 1912.

2 portraits in the collection

Vali Myers, 2001

Eva Collins

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003

Ray Crooke AM

Ray Crooke AM grew up in Melbourne, where after army service in WA, North Queensland and Borneo, he trained at Swinburne Tech from 1946 to 1948.

3 portraits in the collection

Sir Joseph Banks, 1802

William Ridley

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gina and Ted Gregg 2010

Portrait of Ambrose Patterson, 1901-1902

Hugh Ramsay

Gift of the Estate of John Oswald Wicking 2003

Harry Williams

Harry Williams (b. 1951) is a Wiradjuri man and the first Indigenous footballer to represent Australia at international level.

1 portrait in the collection

Ted Dyson, Bill Dyson (with pipe) and Percy

Ted Dyson, Bill Dyson (with pipe) and Percy, c. 1899

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Anthony Mundine, 1992 (printed 2008)

Mervyn Bishop

Previous exhibition, 2017

Purchased 2008

Collection in focus: Brook Andrew

Experience the artistic clout of Brook Andrew’s portraits of Marcia Langton AM and Anthony Mundine.

Francis Nixon

Francis Russell Nixon (1803-1879) photographer, artist and Anglican clergyman, arrived in Hobart in 1843 to take up the role of Bishop of Tasmania.

2 portraits in the collection

Charles Warman Roberts

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

Self portrait (Full Length in front of Easel), 1901-1902

Hugh Ramsay

Portrait, charcoal heightened with white chalk on paper

Gift of the Estate of John Oswald Wicking 2003

Sir Sidney Kidman, 1932

Samuel Woolf

Purchased 2009

Elegance in exile

Portrait drawings from colonial Australia

Previous exhibition, 2012

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.

Jean Bellette, 1937

Adrian Lawlor

Portrait, oil on composition board

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Governor Sir Robert Duff with Lady Duff, Lord Hopetoun and Vice-Regal Party, 1893

Kerry & Co

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Alfred William Cox

Previous exhibition, 2000

Alfred William Cox (1857–1919), racehorse owner and breeder, was born in Liverpool, England, the son of a successful cotton broker.

1 portrait in the collection

Sporting Archibald

Celebrating the focus on sport during 2000, this special exhibition features our national sporting heroes and heroines immortalised on canvas

Sir William John Lyne

Sir William John Lyne (1844-1913), politician, was a Premier of New South Wales and a minister in the first Australian parliament.

1 portrait in the collection

Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis (1950-2020) was born in Maryland, USA, and came to Australia in 1951.

3 portraits in the collection

Evert Ploeg

Evert Ploeg began his career as a commercial illustrator in the mid-1980s.

7 portraits in the collection

Famous

Karin Catt Portraits

Thomas Woolner in Australia

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

Missing Persons

Desperately seeking Woolner medallions

Tamara Tchinarova

Previous exhibition, 2007

Tamara Tchinarova (1919–2017), dancer, was one of the original 'baby ballerinas' of the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo.

2 portraits in the collection

Portrait Paintings by Matthew Perceval

From 1967 until 1981 Matthew Perceval lived and painted in France and during those years produced a large body of portrait paintings.

John Bell, c. 1968

Portrait, inkjet print on rag paper

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

David Malangi Daymirringu, 1986

Martin van der Wal

Purchased 2005

Clif Peir

Clif Peir (b.1905) was a Sydney painter and teacher, who studied at the Julian Ashton School under Ashton and H.C.Gibbons.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark

Tribute: Mary Isabel Murphy

The Chairman, Board, Director and all the staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Benefactor, Mary Isabel Murphy.

Ken Done

Ken Done (b. 1940), painter, studied at East Sydney Tech before becoming an advertising graphic designer.

3 portraits in the collection

Charles Wheeler

Charles Wheeler OBE (1881–1977), artist, won the Archibald Prize in 1933 for a portrait of the popular Melbourne-based writer Ambrose Pratt.

8 portraits in the collection

Mr Thake - Dr So and So, 1959

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

The rock and the flies, 1952

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

Sunshine and rain, Lygon Street, 1964

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

Epstein/Einstein? I can never remember!, 1962

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

Jim Paterson

Jim Paterson, painter, printmaker and sculptor, was born in Melbourne and completed his diploma in Fine Arts at Prahran Technical College in 1969.

1 portrait in the collection

Mel Gibson AO

Mel Gibson (b. 1956), actor, was born in New York state, the sixth of eleven children of a railroad brakeman and an Australian opera singer.

1 portrait in the collection

Dave Sands, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Figure in a rocky landscape, 1965

Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011

Self portrait among the ant hills, 1950

Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011

Desert Island, 1967

Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011

William St Leonards Robertson and the Oxford boat race crew

William St Leonards Robertson and the Oxford boat race crew, early 1880s

Hills & Saunders

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

Greg Weight

Portrait, gouache on paper

Greg Weight is a Sydney-based photographer who grew up in Dee Why. He opened his own studio in 1968, taking advertising and magazine photographs and working with the Australian Opera and the Australian Ballet.

113 portraits in the collection

Maisie, 1938-1939

Peter Purves Smith

Bequest of Lady Maisie Drysdale 2001

Margaret Anderson, 1942

Napier Waller CMG OBE

Portrait, pastel on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Anthony Mundine

Anthony Mundine (b. 1975), Bundjalung boxer and former rugby league player, was born in Newtown in Sydney's inner south and began his career playing league for Hurstville United.

2 portraits in the collection

David Alexander Stewart Campbell

David Alexander Stewart Campbell (1898-1970), wool buyer and journal editor, undertook a woolclassing course in Sydney, worked as a jackeroo, served in the AIF in Egypt and gained further experience with wool in England before he was inducted into the wool trade in Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

Portraits for Posterity

Portrait, etching, printed in black ink from one copper plate on paper

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.

Woureddy [Wurati], a wild native of Brune Island

Woureddy [Wurati], a wild native of Brune Island, 1835

Benjamin Duterrau

Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2009

Truggernana [Trukanini], a native of southern part of V.D. Land

Truggernana [Trukanini], a native of southern part of V.D. Land, 1835

Benjamin Duterrau

Portrait, etching, printed in black ink from one copper plate on paper

Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2009

Henry Wade, c. 1841

Portrait, oil on paperboard

Gift of the Wade and Hannah families 2013

Arcadia (Wayne Lynch and Bob McTavish), 1969 (reprinted 2011)

John Witzig

Gift of the artist 2011

Ralph Barton

Ralph Barton, American cartoonist and caricaturist, produced a body of work that epitomises American high life in the 1920s.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of Kenneth Rowell, 1967

David Strachan

Portrait, oil on canvas on board

Gift of Margaret Olley 2002. Transferred from the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Mary Ware, c. 1854

Robert Dowling

Purchased with funds provided by Mary Isabel Murphy and Rosalind Blair Murphy 2014

Omai, A Native of Ulaietea, 1774

Francesco Bartolozzi after Nathaniel Dance

Portrait, pastel on paper laid on canvas

Purchased with funds provided by Robert Oatley AO 2007

Portrait of Mrs Sarah Fairfax, c. 1864

Edwin Dalton

Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Hedda Morrison, 1941 (printed 2004)

Alastair Morrison

Portrait, type C photograph from an original negative on paper

Gift of the artist 2004

Sir Asher Joel, n.d.

Louis Kahan AO

Portrait, pencil on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Trucaninny [Trukanini], wife of Woureddy [Wurati]

Trucaninny [Trukanini], wife of Woureddy [Wurati], 1836

Benjamin Law

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Tamara Tchinarova, 1938

Max Dupain OBE

Portrait, inkjet print and oil on canvas, mounted with inset axe pendant

Gift of Rex Dupain 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

What the tree saw: David Foster, 2018

Jacqui Stockdale

Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018

Andrew George Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, c.1879 attributed to Charles Nettleton

Diseased curiosity

Captain Moonlite et al on trial for murder

Just after 10.00 o'clock on 3 December 1879, four prisoners were brought from their cells at Darlinghurst Gaol and placed in the dock of a courtroom heaving with agitated spectators

James Gillray

James Gillray, caricaturist and printmaker, was born in Chelsea and learned the art of engraving as a youth in London.

1 portrait in the collection

Alex Mitchell

Magazine article by Djon Mundine OAM, 2017

Alexander George Mitchell (1911-1997), academic, studied English literature and language at the University of Sydney and the University of London before joining the English department of the University of Sydney, where he assumed the McCaughey Chair of Early English Literature and Language in 1947.

1 portrait in the collection

Big shots

Djon Mundine OAM brings poignant memory and context to Martin van der Wal’s 1986 portrait photographs of storied Aboriginal artists.

Charles Abraham

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

John Kaldor, 1975 (printed 2002)

Lewis Morley

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

Elizabeth Rouse

Portrait, pen and ink, pencil on paper laid on cardboard

Elizabeth Rouse (née Adams, 1772–1849), colonial spouse, arrived in New South Wales as a free settler in 1801 with her husband, Richard Rouse (1774–1852) and their first two children, one of whom had been born on the voyage out.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, n.d.

Ada May Plante

Gift of Dr Penny Olsen, Peter Woollard and Artemis Georgiades 2015

OBEY

Shepard Fairey Posters

Previous exhibition, 2009

Shepard Fairey is best known for his iconic poster Obama/Hope which he made in support of Barack Obama for the 2008 US election.

The art of dress

Magazine article by Dr Emma Kindred, 2023

Emma Kindred examines fashion as a representation of self and social ritual in 19th-century portraiture.

Thomas Brassey

Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey (1836–1918), politician and governor, studied law and modern history at Oxford, but abandoned law for a career in politics two years after being called to the Bar.

1 portrait in the collection

John Passmore

Previous exhibition, 2024

John Passmore (1904-1984), painter, studied with Julian Ashton in Sydney between the ages of fourteen and twenty-nine, and took some instruction from George Lambert.

1 portrait in the collection

Gallery Two

Nancy Wake - The White Mouse, 2001

Melissa Beowulf

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004

Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II (Blue)

Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II (Blue), 2001

Polly Borland

Portrait, oil on masonite

Purchased 2021

Peter Elliott, 1964

Jon Molvig

Gift of Richard Elliott 2016. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Ernest Hutcheson

Ernest Hutcheson (1871-1951), pianist, composer and music teacher, started performing at the age of five.

1 portrait in the collection

Edward Knox Jnr and Thomas Forster Knox., c. 1855

Portrait, daguerreotype

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010

TJ Smith and Tulloch, 1960 (printed 2003)

Ern McQuillan OAM

Portrait, charcoal and oil on canvas

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

Elizabeth, 2019

Anthea da Silva

Gift of the artist 2020

Kenneth Wyatt AM

Noongar, Yamatji, Wongi man, Kenneth George Wyatt AM (b. 1952) is an Australian politician.

1 portrait in the collection

The Bath Butterfly

The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.

Barton and Watson, 1902

G. H. Dancey

Purchased 2012

Ivan Gaal

Self Portraits in Australia

Ivan Gaal came to Australia as a refugee from his native Hungary in 1957.

1 portrait in the collection

To Look Within

Previous exhibition, 2004

This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of self-portraits in Australia, from the colonial period to the present

Thea Proctor

Thea Proctor (1879–1966), artist and stylesetter, trained at the Julian Ashton School before leaving Australia for London in 1903.

3 portraits in the collection

Ada May Plante

Portrait, pastel and coloured pencil on paper

Ada May Plante (1875–1950), artist, was born in New Zealand and came to Melbourne with her family in 1888.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait (Hilda in the Chinoise hat)

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

Hilda Rix Nicholas

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

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

Sir William Dargie CBE

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

Gooseberry, widow of King Bungaree, 1836

William Fernyhough

Gift of Dr Robert Edwards AO 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Kondelea Elliott

Kondelea Elliott (1917–2011), union official and women's rights lobbyist, was the daughter of a Greek migrant father, Nicholas Xenodohos, who had come from the Queensland canefields via Sydney, and an Australian mother who had left school at the age of eight and performed in a circus.

1 portrait in the collection

Gail Kelly, 2018

by Paul Newton

Commissioned with funds provided by Westpac Group and Optus 2018

Wurati

an unknown artist after Albert Chevallier Tayler

Wurati (active 1830s, d. 1842), was a Nuennone man from Bruny Island, a skilled hunter, boat builder and renowned storyteller who spoke five dialects.

2 portraits in the collection

Joe Darling (image plate from The Empire's Cricketers. London: Fine Art Society), 1905

Portrait, chromolithograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Velasquez Touch

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2004

Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers, explores the creative collaborations between four Australian artists living in Paris during the first years of the twentieth century.

2013-14 Acquisition Fund

Annual Appeal

This 1910 portrait of Elizabeth Sarah (Lillie) Roberts by Tom Roberts was brought into the Gallery's collection with the assistance of the Acquisition Fund in 2013.

The Huxleys

Portrait, glass plate negative

Will Huxley grew up in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, and Garrett Huxley was raised on the Gold Coast, Queensland.

3 portraits in the collection

Trukanini, 1866 (printed 1890s)

Charles Woolley

Purchased 2011

In Bloom

A collection of the beautiful, bold and botanical

Current exhibition

Explore the beauty and symbolism of flowers in this weird and wonderful floral extravaganza that showcases more than 50 portraits from the collection, new acquisitions and selected loans.

Peace, the Man and Hope, 2005

Brook Andrew, Larry Rawling

Portrait, screenprint on five sheets of paper

Gift of Brook Andrew in memory of Emmaline Rose Charnock 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Irina Baronova

Irina Baronova (1919–2008) was one of the three legendary 'baby ballerinas' of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, who created an international dance sensation in the 1930s and 1940s.

1 portrait in the collection

Stevie Wright

Stevie Wright (1947-2015), singer songwriter, came to Australia from England at the age of nine.

2 portraits in the collection

Peter Elliott AM

Peter Elliott AM (1927–2014) was an obstetrician, gynaecologist and gynaecological oncologist as well as a significant art collector and patron.

6 portraits in the collection

Collection: Icons

Volume Two

Two iBooks of authentic records

The second instalment of a display featuring bold contemporary portraits drawn from the collection. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.

Prison and death in the 19th century

Learning resources

These books include sixteen inmates including Ned Kelly, Captain Moonlite and Frederick Deeming and twelve sketches of the deceased, including several children. For Year 7 – 9 students.

Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on resin-coated paper

Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM (b. 1934), choreographer, teacher and performer, was born in Adelaide and trained in classical ballet and modern dance with Nora Stewart.

1 portrait in the collection

Harry Williams, 2005

Sahlan Hayes

Purchased 2006

Captain Matthew Flinders RN, 1814

an unknown artist, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office

Portrait, stipple engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

Janine Burke

Janine Burke (b. 1952) art historian, biographer, novelist and curator, graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1974.

1 portrait in the collection

Magda Szubanski AO

Magda Szubanski AO (b. 1961), actor and writer, was born in Liverpool, England and moved to Australia when she was four.

1 portrait in the collection

Maurice Felton

Maurice Appleby Felton (1803-1842) arrived in Sydney with his wife and four children in late 1839 as surgeon to the immigrant ship the Royal Admiral.

3 portraits in the collection

Irina Baronova (handing on the baton), 2007

Portrait, encaustic, oil and pigment on composition board

Gift of the J Sages Family Trust 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

True fella

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2011

Michael Desmond profiles the Australian songwriter and performer Neil Murray and his contribution to Australian music.

Vali Myers

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

Study for a portrait of Dame Merlyn Myer DBE

Dame Margery Merlyn Baillieu Myer DBE

Dame Margery Merlyn Baillieu Myer DBE (1900–1982), philanthropist and fundraiser, was the daughter of a hotelier, George Baillieu.

1 portrait in the collection

No shirt, no service

Previous exhibition, 2019

Bon Scott and Angus Young photographed by Rennie Ellis are part of a display celebrating summer and images of the shirtless male.

Primed

Some Prime Ministers

Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.

Garrett Huxley

an unknown artist, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office

Garrett Huxley (b. 1973) was born in Melbourne and raised on the Gold Coast.

3 portraits in the collection

Captain Matthew Flinders RN, 1814

Portrait, stipple engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Will Huxley

Will Huxley (b. 1982) was born in Bath, England, emigrating with his family at the age of seven to grow up in the suburbs of Perth.

3 portraits in the collection

The Dissecting Room

Photographic Portraits from 19th Century Australia

Though initially developed by physicians, phrenology was taken up by certain non-medical practitioners who applied the theory to social questions such as education and criminal reform.

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa

Husbands and Wives

Previous exhibition, 2010

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

John David Armstrong

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2003

John David Armstrong (1857–1943) was a sideshow and vaudeville performer known as ‘The Australian Tom Thumb’.

2 portraits in the collection

Four from the 30s

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.

Trukanini

Trukanini (c. 1812–1876) is arguably nineteenth century Australia’s most celebrated Indigenous leader.

6 portraits in the collection

Jason Yat-sen Li

Jason Yat-Sen Li (b. 1972) was born to parents who came to Australia from China in 1959.

1 portrait in the collection

At the Pantechnetheca, Exhibition, Eastern Arcade, Dominick Sonsee, the smallest man in the world

The Freak Show

Many performers availed themselves of the services of photographic studios, posing for carte de visite portraits that served as souvenirs and as instruments in the making of renown and notoriety.

Omai

Omai (Mai) (c. 1750-1778), the first Polynesian to visit Britain, was a young man of middling social standing who volunteered to sail from Huahine to England with Captain Furneaux on the Adventure (the ship accompanying James Cook's Resolution on Cook's second voyage of discovery (1772-1775).

2 portraits in the collection

E.O. Hoppé

Emil Otto Hoppe (1878–1972) is considered one of the most important and influential portrait and documentary photographers of the twentieth century.

2 portraits in the collection

William Hardy Wilson

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

Ken Wyatt, 2019 (printed 2020)

Alex Ellinghausen

Purchased 2022

Nancy Menetrey

Nancy Menetrey (née Wilkinson) (1924-2024) was born in Sydney in 1924.

1 portrait in the collection

Pixie O'Harris

Pixie O’Harris MBE (1903–1991), author and illustrator, was born Rona Olive Harris in Cardiff, one of the eight children of painter, George Frederick Harris.

1 portrait in the collection

William Robertson, c. 1852

Portrait, 1/6 plate daguerreotype, hand coloured with case

Gift of Fiona Turner (née Robertson) and John Robertson 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

James G. Beaney

James George Beaney (1828–1891), doctor and philanthropist, completed an apprenticeship to a surgeon in his home town of Canterbury, Kent, before leaving to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

1 portrait in the collection

William Strutt

Previous exhibition, 2003

William Strutt arrived in Melbourne in 1850 having undertaken his training in art in Paris in the late 1830s.

1 portrait in the collection

Max Dupain

The Vintage Years

During his long and distinguished career Max Dupain took thousands of photographs of people

Hilda Rix Nicholas

Emily Hilda Rix left Australia in March 1907, having trained for three years at the National Gallery School.

1 portrait in the collection

The Right Honourable William Pitt

William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) was Tory prime minister of Great Britain from 1783 to 1801, and of United Kingdom from 1804 to 1806.

1 portrait in the collection

Grace Cossington Smith OBE

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

Grace Cossington Smith OBE (1892–1984) was a pioneer of modernist art in Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Sideshow Alley

Previous exhibition, 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.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

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

Duke of Wellington, 1841

John Lucas

Previous exhibition, 2022

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

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.

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

So Fine

Contemporary women artists make Australian history

Portrait, oil on masonite

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.

Neville Gruzman, 1968

Eric Smith

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007

Stevie Wright, 1975 (printed 2011)

Gary Ede

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Self portrait, 2002

Barry Humphries

Gift of the Margaret Olley Art Trust 2003

Andres Serrano

J.W. Beattie after Charles Woolley

Andres Serrano, photographer, grew up in New York. After leaving school at fifteen to pursue a career as an artist he attended the Brooklyn Museum Art School between 1967 and 1969.

1 portrait in the collection

Trukanini, n.d.

Portrait, albumen silver photograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Allanah Dopson and Nicholas Heyward 2009

Time and light

In Gallery Seven

Previous exhibition, 2023

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

A Collins Street Surgeon "Patients and Diamonds" [Dr Beaney F.R.C.S.], 1874

Previous exhibition, 2009

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009

In its second year at the National Portrait Gallery, and for the first time touring to other venues, the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 continues to present surprising perspectives on the nature of contemporary portrait photography.

Australians in Hollywood

Previous exhibition, 2003

Although perceived to be a recent phenomenon, the 'Aussie invasion' of Hollywood can actually be traced as far back as the early 1900s

William Baker Ashton

William Baker Ashton (1800-1854) was the first governor of Adelaide Gaol.

1 portrait in the collection

John Gould

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

Tribute

Stevie Wright

Magazine article, 2016

Stevie Wright (1947-2015), singer-songwriter, came to Australia from England at the age of nine.

John Russell

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

2022 Annual Appeal

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.

Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, c. 1814

Thomas Phillips

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on composition board

Purchased 2011

Jane Mander Jones, 1853

Henry Robinson Smith

Gift of Susanna de Vienne, Sarah Wood and David Lloyd Jones 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

David Jones, 1853

Henry Robinson Smith

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on composition board

Gift of Susanna de Vienne, Sarah Wood and David Lloyd Jones 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

J.C. Williamson, c. 1913

John Longstaff

Gift of the family of Aimée Viola Horsley, daughter of J.C. Williamson 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

R. M. Williams AO CMG

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

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

Woureddy [Wurati], an Aboriginal Chief of Van Diemen's Land, 1835

Benjamin Law

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

First Australian first-class cricket team

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

William Baker Ashton, First Governor of Adelaide Gaol, c. 1849

Henry H. Glover

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

David Strachan

David Strachan (1919–1970), painter and printmaker, was educated at Geelong Grammar School and then studied art at the Slade School in London.

2 portraits in the collection

Arthur Murch

Arthur Murch, artist, is best-known as a painter in a colourful cubistic style, but he was occupied with sculpture throughout his career.

8 portraits in the collection

The mystery of Enoch Arden

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

Tennyson's Enoch Arden was inspired by a story that Thomas Woolner passed on to him – but whose story and of whom?

Uncommon Australians

Previous exhibition, 2015

This exhibition showcases portraits acquired through the generosity of the National Portrait Gallery’s Founding Patrons, L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC.

Peace, the Man and Hope (Anthony Mundine), 2005 by Brook Andrew and Larry Rawling (printer)

In focus

Magazine article, 2017

Brook Andrew, Marcia Langton and Anthony Mundine.

Gallery unveils Portrait of Mark Ella

12 May 2016

Archived media releases 2016

Last night in Sydney, the National Portrait Gallery unveiled a newly commissioned portrait of Australian sporting legend Mark Ella AM.

Angus Trumble National Portrait Gallery Director

National Portrait Gallery Director announced

20 December 2013

Archived media releases 2013

The National Portrait Gallery welcomes Angus Trumble

Nicholas Harding

28 Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2017

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.

Henry Edwards

Magazine article by Tamsin Hong, 2016

Henry (Harry) Edwards (1827–1891), actor and entomologist, arrived in Melbourne in 1853 after a short-lived attempt at studying for a career in law.

1 portrait in the collection

Rev. Victor B. Walls and Mrs. Walls, Trinidad, B.W.I., c.1930

The first nurse

Tamsin Hong recounts the tale of Marion Smith, the only known Australian Indigenous servicewoman of World War One.

Dora Byrne, 1951

Richard von Marientreu

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Leslie Walford AM 2013

May Emmeline Wirth

Archived media releases 2022

May Emmeline Wirth (1894–1978), circus performer, was once described as the ‘greatest lady bareback rider of all time’.

1 portrait in the collection

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022)

9 September 2022

The National Portrait Gallery is deeply saddened by the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Throughout her 70-year reign, Her Majesty represented graciousness, humanity and stability during times of enormous social change.

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (future Queen Elizabeth II)

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (future Queen Elizabeth II), 1942-1943

Charles Wheeler

Portrait, coloured chalk on artist board

Purchased 2019

To the end of the earth

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2009

The portrait of Dr. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster from 1780, is one of the oldest in the NPG's collection.

Brett Whiteley - portrait 1, 1975

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

Nancy Wake AC

Nancy Wake AC (1912–2011) was one of the most-decorated women of the Second World War.

1 portrait in the collection

International issue

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

Michael Desmond looks at the history of the Vanity Fair magazine in conjunction with the exhibition Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008

Margaret Robertson, c. 1863

Batchelder & O'Neill

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

First Ladies

Significant Australian Women 1913–2013

Previous exhibition, 2013

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

Stevie Wright, 2003 (printed 2005)

Gregory McBean

Archived media releases 2012

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005

Animation 1 from the series Hereinbefore, 2012 by Laura Moore

iD Digital Portraiture Award winner announced

2 August 2012

The inaugural winner of the $10,000 iD Digital Portraiture Award was announced this morning at the National Portrait Gallery.

Cooey! An Australian Song

"Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey—Love has caught the strain, Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey—it whispers back again." The “Australian lady” who composed these fruity lyrics was none other than Desda— Jane Davies, sometime Messiter (née Price) of Leddicott, Lavender Bay.

Henry Wade

Archived media releases 2014

Henry Wade (1810–1854), surveyor, was trained in surveying at Dublin College before being employed as a civilian assistant by the Royal Engineers Corps.

1 portrait in the collection

Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award 2014

22 August 2014

Press releases for media.

William P. Dowling

William Paul Dowling (1824–1877) is thought to have studied art in his native Dublin before settling in London, where he worked as a draughtsman while trying to establish himself as a portraitist.

1 portrait in the collection

Elizabeth Roberts

Magazine article by Karl James, 2016

Elizabeth Roberts (1812–1833) was the daughter of Warwickshire-born William Roberts (1754–1819) and his wife, Jane (née Longhurst, c.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of Private Edward Lello 1915 by Darge Photographic Company

Final frame

Karl James reflects on soldier portraiture during the Great War.

HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2001

Polly Borland

Purchased 2002

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.

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

Stubbs and the horse

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

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

Sir John Young, c. 1862

Freeman Brothers

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Showing character

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

Joanna Gilmour on Tom Durkin playing with Melbourne's manhood.

Captain W Kinghorne, 1834

Thomas James Lempriere

Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007

Lucy Escott, c. 1861

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite, hand coloured on card

Purchased 2009

Twenty new portraits marking Portrait Gallery’s twentieth birthday

21 August 2018

Archived media releases 2018

To celebrate the National Portrait Gallery’s twentieth anniversary as an institution, twenty portraits of outstanding Australian individuals have been commissioned for the permanent collection. This is the largest undertaking for the Gallery’s commissioning program in its twenty-year existence.

Gustavus Brooke, c. 1865

Burman and Son

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

The Burke and Wills Monument, 1869

Thomas Foster Chuck

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Leigh Bowery, 1984

Robyn Beeche

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2005

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

The world of Thea Proctor

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.

Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), 1965

Clif Peir

Portrait, oil on board

Gift of Richard Brian Close, Githabul people, Woodenbong 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

National Portrait Gallery unveils twenty new portrait commissions to celebrate twenty years

18 October 2018

Archived media releases 2018

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.

William Robertson and Martha Mary Robertson

William Robertson and Martha Mary Robertson, 1863

William Edward Kilburn

Portrait, carte de visite photograph on card

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

Thomas Woolner

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

Face of South Sudan, 2012 by Melanie Faith Dove

NPPP 2013 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2013

Joanna Gilmour, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2013 Prize.

Surface tension

Joanna Gilmour on the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2013.

Madame Sibly, Phrenologist and Mesmerist

Madame Sibly, Phrenologist and Mesmerist, c. 1870

James E. Bray

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite photograph

Purchased 2017

Thomas Pearce, c. 1878

The Photographic Society of Victoria, Melbourne

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite on card

Purchased 2010

Mr Movies - Bill Collins OAM, 2009

Evert Ploeg

Portrait, oil on linen

Gift of Joan Collins and the Todd-Wilson family in memory of Bill Collins 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The Fairfax Gift

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2003

This article examines the portraits gifted to the National Portrait Gallery by Fairfax Holdings in 2003.

Queen Elizabeth II

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022) was the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, who subsequently became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

4 portraits in the collection

Charles Blondin, 1874

Timothy Noble

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Arnold Shore

Arnold Shore, a lifelong inhabitant of Melbourne, was apprenticed to a stained glass and leadlight company called Brooks, Robinson soon after leaving school at the age of twelve.

2 portraits in the collection

William Henry Harvey

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

Hattie Shepparde, 1872

Bardwell's Royal Studio

Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery

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

Henry Squires, c. 1861

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite, hand coloured on card

Purchased 2009

William St. Leonards Robertson, c. 1869

Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

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

Australian Love Stories

4 January 2021

Archived media releases 2021

A major new exhibition celebrating love in all its guises. Opening 20 March 2021.

Portrait of Truganini, daughter of the Chief of Bruny Island, Van Diemens Land, c. 1835

Black and white history

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2004

English artist Benjamin Duterrau took up the cause of the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania with his detailed and sympathetic renderings.

101 photographic portraits

Pat Corrigan's generous gift of 100 photographic portraits by Greg Weight.

Darren McDonald

Explore The Popular Pet Show

The wild balancing act of McDonald’s home décor (is that there as a joke? where do I actually sit down? is this ironic or what? what a lovely photo of Darren and Robin in Europe!) is reflected in his own personality.

Very fine and very like

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

When did notions of very fine and very like become separate qualities of a portrait? And what happens to 'very like' in the age of photographic portraiture?

Capturing the Mouse

Nancy Wake AC (b. 1912), one of the most decorated women of World War 2, earned the name the 'White Mouse' for her maddening ability to evade the Gestapo.

Top shot that

Magazine article by Gideon Haigh, 2009

Gideon Haigh discusses portraits of Australian cricketers from the early 20th century

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

8 March 2018

Archived media releases 2018

Images for media use will be available from 8 March 2018.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), army officer and hero, was the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1828 to 1830.

1 portrait in the collection

What the tree saw: David Foster, 2018

by Jacqui Stockdale

Magazine article by Dimity Goldie, 2003

Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018

Portrait of a Modernist

The National Portrait Gallery acquired the self-portrait by Grace Cossington Smith in 2003.

Harriet Schwarzrock: spaces between movement and stillness

10 February 2021

Archived media releases 2021

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.

L. Gordon Darling AC CMG

31 August 2015

Archived media releases 2015

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.

Insightful

Magazine article by Robert McFarlane, 2004

Henri-Cartier-Bresson invented the grammar for photographing life in the 20th century.

The life of Bryant

Magazine article by Tenille Hands, 2018

Tenille Hands explores a portrait prize gifted to the National Screen and Sound Archive.

Dupain detective

Magazine article by Johanna McMahon, 2019

Johanna McMahon revels in history and mystery in pursuit of a suite of unknown portrait subjects.

Small worlds

Bess Norriss Tait created miniature watercolour portraits full of character and life.

Figurative foundation

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and art of the Australian artist Janet Dawson.

Handing on the baton

Michael Desmond explores the life of ballerina Irina Baranova through the portrait by Australian artist Jenny Sages.

Obey

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2019

Michael Desmond investigates the street art of Shepard Fairey, who was catapulted to fame during the 2008 presidential election with his resonant image of Barack Obama.

Portfolio of 54 portraits compiled by Queen Victoria, 1859–1861 by John Jabez Edwin Mayall, Camille Silvy, Frances Day and William Bambridge

Queen of cartes

Joanna Gilmour discusses the role of the carte de visite in portraiture’s democratisation, and its harnessing by Victoria, the world’s first media monarch.

The line of fire

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2005

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

General Birdwood, the Idol of Anzac, taking a dip in the sea after a hard days work 1915

In the thick of it

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2011

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.

The numbers man

Dr. Sarah Engledow tells the story of Australia's first Federal statistician, Sir George Knibbs.

Fred Hilmer, 2018

by Evert Ploeg

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

Commissioned with funds provided by Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018

Alternative virtue

Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.

Simon Harsent

Finalist interviews

I like to think I'm an artist who uses photography as my medium, but I work commercially as a photographer and it's my full time occupation so I guess that defines me as a photographer or maybe a commercial artist?

Mrs NR Mackintosh (Anne) by Ruth Hollick

Natural, artistic and unselfconscious

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2016

Angus Trumble gazes at the once bright star of photographer Ruth Hollick.

Queen Victoria, 1901

The Illustrated London News after Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant

Portrait, photogravure on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Australians in Hollywood

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2003

The exhibition Australians in Hollywood celebrated the achievements of Australians in the highly competitive American film industry.

Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

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

Portrait of Thea Proctor, 1905 by George Lambert

The real Thea

Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.

Bonfire of the vanities

Magazine article by Stuart Purves, 2016

Australian Galleries Director Stuart Purves tells the story of two portraits by John Brack.

Drawing power

Magazine article by Eileen Adams, 2006

The National Portrait Gallery joins the Big Draw, a program dedicated to promoting drawing as a tool for thought, creativity, social and cultural engagement.

Costantini's convictions

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2017

Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.

The hands have it

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2016

Angus Trumble treats the gallery’s collection with a dab hand.

Une Femme Amoureuse, Self portrait as Mireille Mathieu, 2022 Yvette Coppersmith

You, looking at me

Magazine article by Elspeth Pitt, 2022

Elspeth Pitt chats with Archibald Prize-winning artist Yvette Coppersmith about performance, coincidences and the intersection of art and life.

Lyndall Hobbs and Marilyn at the Come as your favourite blonde party, Blitz Club, London, 1979 Robert Rosen

Shiny, happy people

Magazine article by Glynis Jones, 2022

Glynis Jones on the Powerhouse’s retrospective of one of Australia’s foremost fashion reportage and social photographers.

The bright-eyed Mariner

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2008

A new colonial portrait brings a zealous captain near.

Hottie's Snifter to port

Magazine article by Peter Jeffrey, 2016

Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.

Painter John Brack with Professor Alex Mitchell and Sir Garfield Barwick, c. 1977

Jozef Vissel

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2006

Gift of the Jozef Vissel 2015

9 lives of Karin Catt

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

Alison Rehfisch

Alison Baily Rehfisch (1900–1975) was born Alison Green in Woollahra, New South Wales, to parents who 'were very interested in painting – in all the arts: music, literature, everything'.

2 portraits in the collection

Doodles of the Diva

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2022

Three tiny sketches of Dame Nellie Melba in the NPG collection were created by the artist who was to go on to paint the most imposing representation of the singer: Rupert Bunny.

Virginia Woolf, 1902 George Charles Beresford

Love my way

Inga Walton delves into the bohemian group of artists and writers who used each other as muses and transformed British culture.

Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by H.R.H. The Duke of Cornwall and York, May 9, 1901, 1903 by Tom Roberts

Empire records

Magazine article by Kylie Scroope, 2011

Celebrates the centenary of the first national art collection, the Historic Memorials Collection, housed at Australia's Parliament House.

Pre-Raphaelite Profile

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2006

In 2006 the National Portrait Gallery acquired a splendid portrait of Victoria's first governor, Lieutenant Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe by Thomas Woolner.

Lovers of light

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2008

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

In the round

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2009

Andrew Sayers outlines the highlights of the National Portrait Gallery's display of portrait sculpture.

Mary (or Diana) Croker, mat woman, Colchester, 1823 by John Dempsey

Unknown drawer

Magazine article by Dr David Hansen, 2017

Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.

Give me five

Magazine article by Karen Quinlan AM, 2021

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

In the mirror: self portrait with Joy Hester

Spring exhibition program

18 August 2020

Archived media releases 2020

The following on-line and physical exhibitions are planned to open at the National Portrait Gallery in coming months. For those who can’t travel at present, selected works from all exhibitions will be included online

Hide/Seek

Magazine article by David Ward, 2010

David Ward writes about the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington.

Winning in technicolor

Magazine article by Alistair McGhie, 2009

Alistair McGhie writes about the portraits of three of Australia's top professional cyclists: Cadel Evans, Stuart O'Grady and Robbie McEwen painted by Matthys Gerber.

The personal and the historical

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2010

Where do we draw a line between the personal and the historical? Although she died in Melbourne in 1975, when I was not quite eleven years old, I have the vividest memories of my maternal grandmother Helen Borthwick.

The considered life

Andrew Sayers asks whether a portrait can truly be the examination of a life.

Announcing... Jonathan Jones Bogong Cluster: Physically distant, socially connected

5 January 2021

Archived media releases 2021

A new light installation by Jonathan Jones reflects on the importance of community through the lens of his Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi heritage, whilst also acting as a prompt for gallery visitors to maintain social distancing.

Inside outside

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

Michael Desmond explores the portraiture of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Modern Australian Women

Magazine article by Gillian Raymond, 2005

Close contemporaries, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith were frequently sources of inspiration and irritation to each other.

200 Years of Portraiture

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2006

To celebrate his family bicentenary, Malcolm Robertson looks at the portraiture legacy left by his ancestors.

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.

Fits of delicacy and despair

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2009

Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.

Herra Pahlasari

by Aminudin TH Siregar

Artist essays

At the time of Herra Pahlasari’s birth in 1978, her academic parents were living in Canberra.

20/20 launch speech

Magazine article by Dr David Hansen, 2022

Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

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

The last word

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

Where the wild things are

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2019

Michael Desmond explores the complex portrait of Dr Bob Brown by Harold 'The Kangaroo' Thornton.

Lady Jane Grey, c.1590-1600 (also known as The ‘Streatham’ portrait) Artist unknown

The Royal she

Traversing paint and pixels, Inga Walton examines portraits of select women in Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits.

Portrait Donors

Listed by year

Honour board

Nocturnal animals

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2017

Joanna Gilmour explores the enticing urban shadows cast by artists Martin Lewis and Edward Hopper.

Two pair

Magazine article by Dr Jacqui Strecker, 2008

Stuttgart's Art Museum is showing Otto Dix portraits alongside artists from Lucas Cranach to Andy Warhol.

Arianne McNaught

NPPP 2012 learning resource

An interview with the photographer.

Naked nostalgia

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Penelope Grist reminisces about the halcyon days of a print icon, before the infusion of the internet’s shades of grey.

In good company

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

Jean Appleton’s 1965 self portrait makes a fine addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s collection writes Joanna Gilmour.

Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly), 1885-86

Brothers on farms

Magazine article by Malcolm Robertson, 2011

Malcolm Robertson tells the family history of one of Australia's earliest patrons of the arts, his Scottish born great great great grandfather, William Robertson.

Bloodlines

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2004

Michelle Fracaro describes Lionel Lindsay's woodcut The Jester (self-portrait).

Untitled #88 (Captain Brad Kilpatrick and Kylie Minogue, Balibo, East Timor, 20 December 1999)

For the boys

Magazine article by Alistair McGhie, 2011

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

Vintage Max

Magazine article by Gael Newton, 2003

Gael Newton delves into the life and art of renowned Australian photographer, Max Dupain.

Getting a head

Magazine article by Alexandra Roginski, 2015

Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.

More cash than dash

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.

Indexing, the art of

Magazine article by Christine Clark, 2006

The first index I created was for my first book, and, to my astonishment, that was almost twenty-five years ago.

Portraits and other stories

As the National Portrait Gallery opens its exhibition of portrait and figurative work by veteran photographer Sam Haskins, the artist reflects on the highlights of his fifty-year career so far.

Alexander Pearce
executed for murder
July 19th 1824

Public hanging

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2008

As a convict Thomas Bock was required to sketch executed murders for science; as a free man, fashionable society portraits.

Sunset in the drawing room at Chesney Wold by Hablot Knight Brown

Portraiture in a Bleak House

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

It may seem an odd thing to do at one’s leisure on a beautiful tropical island, but I spent much of my midwinter break a few weeks ago re-reading Bleak House.

Hyperversity

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the larger-than-life Australian performance artist, Leigh Bowery.

The news from Washington

Magazine article by Lauretta Morton, 2006

Australia's former Cultural Attache to the USA, Ron Ramsey, describes the mood at the opening week of the revitalised American National Portrait Gallery.

A.I.

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2015

Christopher Chapman ponders our digital identity and selfhood.

History

About us

How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be

Seduce, Amuse, Entertain

NPPP 2007 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2007

Michael Desmond, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2007 Prize.

Seduce Amuse Entertain

Michael Desmond profiles a handful of the entrants in first National Photographic Portrait Prize and notes emerging themes and categories.

Seeing stars

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2013

Joanna Gilmour explores photographic depictions of Aboriginal sportsmen including Lionel Rose, Dave Sands, Jerry Jerome and Douglas Nicholls.

Mugshots

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

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

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

Presence and absence

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2018

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

Suave

Charles Haddon Chambers the Australian-born playboy playwright settled permanently in London in 1880 but never lost his Australian stance when satirising the English.

Finest quality

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

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

Technical terminology

Michael Desmond introduces some of the ideas behind the exhibition Present Tense: An imagined grammar of portraiture in the digital age.

Queen Alexandra and Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia, Hvidore, circa 1908 by Mary Steen

The cost of living luxuriously

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

In 1904, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia purchased as a gift for her sister, Queen Alexandra, a fan composed of two-color gold, guilloché enamel, mother-of-pearl, blond tortoiseshell, gold sequins, silk, cabochon rubies, and rose diamonds from the House of Fabergé in Saint Petersburg.

Omai, Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, 1775-76

First encounters

Representations of the inhabitants of the new world expose the complexities of the colonisers' intentions.

Donated duo

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2009

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the gift of two striking paintings by the Australian artist Ken Done AM.

Group photograph taken at the coronation of King George VI including Queen Elizabeth II, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Queen Mother, 12 May 1937 by Hay Wrightson

Poise and Carats

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

I keep going back to Cartier: The Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia next door, and, within the exhibition, to Princess Marie Louise’s diamond, pearl and sapphire Indian tiara (1923), surely one of the most superb head ornaments ever conceived.

Regarding Henrys

Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.

Cachasunghia, Osage Warrior 1804–06 by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin

Political profiles

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

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.

Duty bound

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2009

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of colonial women Lady Ellen Stirling, Eliza Darling, Lady Eliza Arthur, Elizabeth Macquarie and Lady Jane Franklin.

In the galleries

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2009

Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.

Some prime ministers

Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.

Monument to Mrs. Moore St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool, Sydney

Waterloo and Mrs. Moore

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

Beyond the centenary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, a number of other notable anniversaries converge this year. Waterloo deserves a little focussed consideration, for in the decades following 1815 numerous Waterloo and Peninsular War veterans came to Australia.

Uncommon Australians

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.

Tiny Trace of a Colonial Giant

At just 7.8 x 6.2 cm, the daguerreotype of Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa is one of the smallest works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Chet Baker, singer, New York City, January 16, 1986 by Richard Avedon

The existential lens

Magazine article by Stephen Zagala, 2013

Stephen Zagala discusses Richard Avedon’s work from an Australian perspective.

Christian Waller with Baldur, Undine and Siren at Fairy Hills, 1932 by Napier Waller

Enigma

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2015

Grace Carroll contemplates the curious case of Christian Waller.

Portrait of William Manning, c.1821 by Henry Bone

Of beef in burgundy

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2017

Angus Trumble reveals the complex technical mastery behind a striking recent acquisition, Henry Bone’s enamel portrait of William Manning.

No Laughing Matter

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2002

The biographical exhibition of Barry Humphries was the first display of its kind at the National Portrait Gallery.

All dressed up

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2013

Jane Raffan asks do clothes make the portrait, and can the same work with a new title fetch a better price?

Studio portrait of servicewoman Lance Corporal Kathleen Jean Mary (Kath) Walker, c.1942

Past present

Magazine article by Krysia Kitch, 2016

Krysia Kitch celebrates Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Private virtues public lives

Magazine article by Annette Twyman, 2021

Family affections are preserved in a fine selection of intimate portraits.

Portrait of Elizabeth Gould with a raptor, possibly a red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus), painted in her lifetime Artist unknown

Birds of a feather

Charting a path from cockatiel to finch, Annette Twyman explores her family portraits and stories.

Christmas Island

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2021

This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.

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

Wunderkind lost

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

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

Petal to the mettle

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

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

Eating the seasons

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2019

Anne Sanders imbibes Tony Bilson’s gastronomic revolution.

William Shakespeare, c. 1600-1610 associated with John Taylor

Take thy face hence

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2022

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

The portrait writ large

Magazine article by Karen Vickery, 2015

Karen Vickery on Chang the Chinese giant in Australia.

The silent partner

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

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 importance of being bearded

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2012

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 Mutineers turning Lieut Bligh and part of the Officers and Crew adrift from His Majesty's Ship the Bounty

High & Bligh

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2008

Joanna Gilmour explores the 1790 portrait of William Bligh by Robert Dodd.

A potpourri of portraits

Magazine article by Natalie Wilson, 2023

Archie 100 curator (and detective) Natalie Wilson’s nationwide search for Archibald portraits unearthed the fascinating stories behind some long-lost treasures.

Murray frees himself from straightjacket in public, 1928 by Sam Hood

Risky business

Magazine article by John Zubrzycki, 2016

John Zubrzycki lauds the characters of the Australian escapology trade.

The Art Lovers - Megan, 2013 by Gary Grealy

Everybody, look serious

NPPP 2014 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2005

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2014 Prize.

Friends and Acquaintances

Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.

Beguiling impressions

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2012

Sarah Engledow is seduced by the portraits and the connections between the artists and their subjects in the exhibition Impressions: Painting light and life.

Eileen Dunne in The Hospital for Sick Children, 1940

The incomparable Beaton

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2005

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).

Louis XVI giving final instructions to the Comte de La Perouse, c. 1785

Sea legged frogs

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

Joanna Gilmour describes some of the stories of the individuals and incidents that define French exploration of Australia and the Pacific.

Woman with Fair Hair and Pink Cardigan, 1949 by John Perceval.

The family scene

Magazine article, 2016

Traudi Allen discovers sensitivity, humour and fine draughtsmanship in the portraiture of John Perceval.

Flash mob

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

Sarah Engledow trains her exacting lens on the nine photographs from 20/20.

Waterfall in Australia, c. 1830 by Augustus Earle

Augustus serendipitous

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825.

Patrick White at Centennial Park, 1979–1980

Listomania

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2013

Sarah Engledow describes the fall-out once Brett Whiteley stuck Patrick White’s list of his loves and hates onto his great portrait of the writer.

Untitled #21/09 (after Ricci, 1700; featuring Matthew Mitcham)

Getting bare

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2015

How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.

Little women

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2019

Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.

Practising the Minuet (Miss Hilda Spong)

An actress and her fans

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2008

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.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885-86 by
John Singer Sargent

A feast of friends

Magazine article by Richard Ormond, 2015

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

Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and David R. L. Litchfield at Villa Favorita, Lugano, Switzerland, 1989 © Nicola Graydo

The Thyssen Art Macabre

NPPP 2017 exhibition essay

Books seldom make me angry but this one did. At first, I was powerfully struck by the uncanny parallels that existed between the Mellons of Pittsburgh and the Thyssens of the Ruhr through the same period, essentially the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Trevor Jamieson, 2016 by Brett Canet-Gibson

The more things change...

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

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

The Right Honourable Sir Ninian Stephen KGAK GCMG GCVO KBE QC, 2006 by Rick Amor

Prima facie

Sarah Engledow casts a judicious eye over portraits in the Victorian Bar’s Peter O’Callaghan QC Portrait Gallery.

Studio portrait of Lord Kitchener, British Secretary of State for War, 1914 by J Russell & Sons

All the way with K of K

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2016

Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.

Anangu landscape learning

Angus' initial perception of Uluru shifts, as he comes to see it as central to the entire order of Anangu life.

Forest Creek, Mount Alexander Diggings, 1852 by S. T. Gill

The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush

Some years ago my colleague Andrea Wolk Rager and I spent several days in the darkened basement of a Rothschild Bank, inspecting every one of the nearly 700 autochromes created immediately before World War I by the youthful Lionel de Rothschild.

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.

Faces of war

Lecture, 14 May 2011

Lesley Harding, Curator, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne explores Albert Tucker’s experience of World War II, his interests in the intersection between psychology and creativity, and their influence on his portrait making.

Less than six degrees of separation

Lecture, 28 May 2011