Search / george story

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on paper

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

Self portrait, 1858-1860

George Fordyce Story

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

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

Unknown artist Publisher Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News

an unknown artist, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News

'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

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 Johnston OBE

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 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

George Johnston

Recorded 1964

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 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

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

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

Portrait, papercut silhouette drawing

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 Chow Bow, 2017

Pamela See

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019

George Mealmaker, 1798 (printed c. 1838)

John Kay

Portrait, etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

George Highland, 1925

Tom Glover

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

William Morris

George Frederic Watts

Self portrait, 1846

George French Angas

Purchased 1999

Lee Lin Chin, 2004 (printed 2021)

Portrait, ink and gouache on paper

Gift of the artist 2021

Federal Statistician Knibbs, 1919

David Low

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

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

David Moore

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

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

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998

George Gittoes, 1999

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

Sir George Fisher, n.d.

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

George Barrington, 1820

John Chapman

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

George Nicholas, 1955

Paul Fitzgerald AM

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

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

Courage, Self-analysis and Skill

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2002

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

Tender tragedies

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

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

Gift of Michael Desmond 2012

Henry Fullwood (Uncle Remus), 1919

Portrait, pencil on paper

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

Portrait of Norman Lindsay as a student, c. 1896

George Coates

Portrait, oil on cardboard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

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 Tedi Bills, 2016

Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018

Love City; George Gittoes on hilltop 2013

Man of war

Tedi Bills talks to George Gittoes about canvassing conflict.

Money and swat

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2007

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

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 John Williams, c. 1837

George Baxter

Portrait, wood engraving (Baxter print) on paper

Purchased 2012

Reverend William Singleton, 1866

George Perry

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

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

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'

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

George French Angas, Thomas McLean

Purchased 2009

South Australian Illustrated (Plate 35), 1847

H.B.G Larkin, 1928

L E. Reynolds

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

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

David Moore

Portrait, albumen photograph on cabinet card

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.

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

Purchased 2015

George Hoyningen-Huene and Jessie the Barmaid, 1937

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

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Sir George Reid, c. 1895

Nelson Illingworth

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

George Foletta, n.d.

Dickinson Monteath Studio

an unknown artist, J Bird & Simmonds

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

The Memoirs of George Barrington, 1790

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.

Two painters

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2007

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

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

The Right Honourable Lord Viscount Melbourne

The Right Honourable Lord Viscount Melbourne, 1839

Charles Turner after Sir George Hayter

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Alexander Dalrymple, 1809

Portrait, soft ground etching on paper

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

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.

George Reid paperweight, c. 1910

Farmer and Company Limited

Portrait, painted cast iron

Purchased 2006

George Reid paperweight, c. 1910

Farmer and Company Limited

Portrait, painted cast iron

Purchased 2001

George Burarrwanga, Warumpi Band, 1984 (printed 2021)

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)

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.

Australia v England, 1887

Goupil & Cie after Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples, George Barrable

Portrait, photogravure on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

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

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

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

Australian Cricket (George John Bonnor), 1884

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

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

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

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

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

A colourful story from Sideshow Alley

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

Brainwave interactive artwork by George Khut

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

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.

Ken telling a story, radiating glory

Claudio Kirac

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.

The Story So Far...

Magazine article by Polly Borland, 2022

A reflection on the National Portrait Gallery's first four years.

Portrait story

Photographer Polly Borland on capturing Queen Elizabeth II.

An Australian story

Magazine article by The Hon. Dr Kevin Rudd, 2009

In his speech launching the new National Portrait Gallery building on 3 December 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set the Gallery in a national and historical context.

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

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2022

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

The story of us

Gallery directors Karen Quinlan and Tony Ellwood talk to Penelope Grist about the NPG and NGV collaborative exhibition, Who Are You: Australian Portraiture.

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

Magazine article by Vincent Fantauzzo, 2022

Portrait story

Artist Vincent Fantauzzo on dyslexia, connection and virtual sittings with Hugh Jackman.

Family portrait

Fiona Bowring

The Bare story

Magazine article by Ellie Cole AM, 2022

Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be

Portrait Story

For me, swimming was particularly special because it was the only sport that I could participate in as a kid where I could take my prosthetic leg off, jump in the water, and I could be the same as all the other kids.

The inside story

The photographers reveal the technical side of their work and reflect on changes in their profession. Now everyone has a camera in their pocket, is everyone a photographer? What is it like to sustain a career as a photographer in the entertainment industry? How do you work with celebrity subjects, negotiate the complex logistics of big shoots, and create captivating portraits under pressure?

Drought story

Joel B. Pratley

where will the story take us

Katrin Koenning

'Everyone wants to know the story about the Queen'

Polly Borland

Mohammad D and Sam Biddle

Australian photographer, Polly Borland, describes the hectic experience of photographing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

My story, 2019

The Story Teller (Noni Hazlehurst), 2017

Jaq Grantford

Gift of the artist 2022

Shirlie Purdie tells a story from her mother

"It’s good to learn from old people. They keep saying when you paint you can remember that Country, just like to take a photo, but there’s the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and everything. Good to put it in painting, your Country, so kids can know and understand. When the old people die, young people can read the stories from the paintings. They can learn from the paintings and maybe they want to start painting too."

Dayannah, 2018

by Raphaela Rosella

Upper primary and high school

Scientist Portraits: Story and Spectacle

Event, Selected days from Thursday 14 August

Learn how storytelling meets science in this special program presented in collaboration with Questacon for National Science Week.

Ghenoa Gela in ‘Winds of Woerr'

Gregory Lorenzutti

Ghenoa Gela in ‘Winds of Woerr'

Gregory Lorenzutti

Sir Douglas Mawson Kt OBE FRS, Heinemann, London

The Home of the Blizzard: being the story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 (2 volumes), 1915

Portrait, two volumes illustrated with colour and black and white plates, three folding maps

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Nothing black and white about the Greys

It's Complicated

Marriage: a prolonged disaster

Sir Edgar Barton ‘EB’ Coles

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

2 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

Marlon Williams, 2015

by Dean Golja

The Butcher's Daughter, 2013

by Paul Raymond Beutel

Norm Provan

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

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu (1970–2017), a man of the Gumatj clan of north east Arnhem Land, was born blind but learned to play guitar, keyboard, drums and didgeridoo as a child.

1 portrait in the collection

London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company

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

2 portraits in the collection

Paddy Dhathangu, 1986

Purchased 2005

Paddy Dhathangu

Paddy Dhathangu (1914-1993), Liyagawumirr (Yolgnu) painter, was one of the Ramingining-based artists who contributed to the Aboriginal Memorial (1987-8), comprising two hundred painted burial poles now on permanent display in the National Gallery of Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Frank McIlwraith

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

1 portrait in the collection

Robert Fielding

Recorded 2022

The Australian Tom Thumb (John David Armstrong)

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

J D. Cooper

Magazine article by Avraham Vofsi, 2022

Purchased 2014

Lucinda, Tram Driver, 2021 Avraham Vofsi

Observation point

For me, portraiture is all about connection. If we can connect deeply to another person’s story, it can be a profoundly moving experience.

Buckley discovering himself to the early settlers

William Buckley

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

Jack Charles

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

Recorded 2022

Buckley discovering himself to the early settlers, 1869

Portrait, colour wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2009

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.

Walter Lindrum

'Wally and the game of billiards'

A portrait story exploring the life of Walter Lindrum, one of the greatest billiard players of all time.

Nancy Wake

'The White Mouse'

The creation of 'Our Don'

A portrait story describing the amazing life of World War II resistance fighter, Nancy Wake.

Don Bradman

December 2007 - February 2008

A portrait story that explores the life and times of legendary Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman.

Portrait 26

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

My Dad the People Smuggler, 2013

by Phuong Thai Hoang Ngo

September - November 2006

Finalist, MDPA 2013

Portrait 21

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

Stan Grant and Tracey Holmes

Nic Walker

The mystery of Enoch Arden

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

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, 2009

Guido Maestri

Portrait, oil on linen

Gift of the artist 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

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

Cindy Kavanagh

The portrait, the priestess, is of a friend, Floria, and it's part of a project I've been working on for two years, which is 50 at 50.

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

Portrait, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching cotton rag paper

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.

Stan Grant and Tracey Holmes, 2020

Nic Walker

Gift of the artist 2021

Portrait 13

September - November 2004

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

Rob, Homeless in Cooma, NSW, 2016

by Greg Nelson

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

Hop, skip, shoot

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

Am I living in Hell?, 2018

Lauren Horwood

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

In the mirror: self portrait with Joy Hester (detail), 1939 Albert Tucker

Australian Love Stories online

#PortraitureComesHome

Lust and longing, drama and devotion, seduction and scandal! Delve into an enticing array of tales of the heart.

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

The heart that is theirs, 2008

by Lisa Tomasetti

Robert Drewe

Robert Drewe (b. 1943), author, grew up in Perth, where he worked as a junior reporter with the West Australian from 1961 to 1964.

1 portrait in the collection

Dr G Yunupingu

Magazine article, 2017

Dr G Yunupingu (1970-2017), a man of the Gumatj clan of north-east Arnhem Land, learned to play guitar, keyboard, drums and didgeridoo as a child.

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

Chest piece, 2014

by Jeremy Shaw

Toni Collette, 1999 (printed 2022)

Polly Borland

Two iBooks of authentic records

Purchased 2022

Prison and death in the 19th century

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.

Rayner Hoff, 1924

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

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch

Portraits & Other Stories

The story behind the commissioning of the tapesty portrait of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.

Sam Haskins

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

Jessie Sinden

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

Me and My Place

Emily Ma

Previous exhibition, 2023

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.

John David Armstrong

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

2 portraits in the collection

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 arrival, 2017

by Renée Stamatova

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

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2024

Launched at the National Portrait Gallery in 2022, the Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize is a competition for primary and secondary students, with four separate age categories across Kindergarten to Year 12.

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

Bern Emmerichs

Contributing artists

Born: 1961, Melbourne
Works: Melbourne

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

Cordy in the Clouds 2021

Adam Haddrick

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

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

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

House painters, 2019

Graham Monro

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

John O'Gready

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Toni Collette

Toni Collette (b. 1972), actor, producer, singer and songwriter, spent much of her childhood in the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown and left school at 16 to join the Australian Theatre for Young People.

1 portrait in the collection

Martha Knox, c. 1855

Portrait, daguerreotype

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

Tokyo, 2010

by Lisa Tomasetti

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

Mrs Woods and ‘Ere, 2013

Karla Dickens

Purchased 2019

Ruby Hunter, 1996 (printed 2012)

Jacqueline Mitelman

Purchased 2012

Adelaide, Königin von Grossbritranien u Irland

Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen

Previous exhibition, 2002

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

1 portrait in the collection

Angela Belgiorno-Zegna, 2001 by Salvatore Zofrea

Intimate Portraits

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

Leaving Lost, 2013

by Frazer Bull-Clark

Finalist, MDPA 2013

Joyful sadness

Rozalind Drummond’s photographs in the exhibition Tough and tender let us bring our imagination to the act of looking.

Carlos Soyos, 34, a migrant from Guatemala City, Guatemala and his son, Enderson Soyos, 8, take a self portrait at El Buen Samaritano migrants shelter, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico

Adam Ferguson

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

by David Kelly

Dr Brenda Niall AO

Brenda Niall AO (b. 1930), writer, academic and reviewer, is one of Australia's foremost biographers.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Kate Grenville AO

Kate Grenville AO (b. 1950), novelist, studied in Sydney and worked as a film editor before spending several years in the UK and Europe, where she began to write.

2 portraits in the collection

Mrs Woods, 2013

Karla Dickens

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

Shaun: Warda Kadak, Becoming

Melissa Clements

Icons Syndicate

Listed alphabetically

Honour board

Destination Dissociation

Perri Lawson

Kate Grenville

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2021

Recorded 2014

Living Memory

Previous exhibition, 2021

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.

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

Purchased 2015

Clem Sands, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Russell Sands, n.d.

Purchased 2011

Alfie Sands, c. 1940s

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

Portrait of Minika, 2013

by Grace Costa

Archived media releases 2016

Gallery unveils Portrait of Mark Ella

12 May 2016

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

Observation point

Magazine article by Fiona McMonagle, 2016

Fiona McMonagle considers her reasons for painting portraits.

Susie Porter, 2019

Dee Smart

Lina Bryans

Previous exhibition, 2020

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

Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe

Shirley Purdie

Using ochres collected on her country in Western Australia’s East Kimberley, Shirley Purdie’s self-portrait is a kaleidoscope of traditional Gija stories and Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) passed down to her.

Gordon Glenn

Previous exhibition, 2001

Gordon Glenn worked as an assistant cameraman on the television show Homicide before becoming the stills photographer for the pioneering Australian journal Cinema Papers.

3 portraits in the collection

William Yang

Australian Chinese

William Yang's art is about the telling of stories, his work is an intriguing mixture of philosophy, autobiography, social history and documentary imbued with a sense of the artist's own curiosity, humanity and humour

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

Impressions

Painting light and life

Previous exhibition, 2011

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 portrait of Patrick White by Brett Whiteley

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

Patrick White at Centennial Park, 1979–1980

White Whiteley

Previous exhibition, 2012

Eleven works by Brett Whiteley, centred around his scintillating 'Patrick White at Centennial Park 1979-1980'.

Awesome Achievers

A cross-curriculum learning resource

Learning resource archive

What makes someone awesome? And how does a portrait tell a person's story? Bring your students up close and personal with some great Australians. For upper primary school students.

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

by Kellie Maree Leczinska

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

Kuei - The Sea of Gazelles - South Sudan to Oz, 2016

Ruby Hunter

Magazine article by Andrew Maccoll, 2012

Ruby Hunter (1955-2010), singer/songwriter, was a Ngarrindjeri/ Kukatha/ Pitjantjatjara woman from South Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Beach scene

Photographer Andrew Maccoll tells the story behind his portrait of dual world champion pro surfer Mick Fanning.

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

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

2 portraits in the collection

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

Felix, Petty Cash Café Marrickville, 2019

Fiona Wolf-Symeonides

Negotiating a family portrait-a study of history, myth and identity, 2015 Family, 2015

by Marzena Wasikowska

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2005

True Stories

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

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

Esther Erlich and Joe

Joe is my grandson, he's the youngest of my son's kids, and the other two have been painted already so I did him.

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

Read the Room

Emma Armstrong-Porter

Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis Bayliss

Ngarrga Jawandaji Dancing for The Sandridge Band Performing Their Song Ngabaya (Spirit People) at the 2021 Malandarri Festival, Yanyuwa Country 2021

Justin C. Tjungurrayi

Justin Corby Tjungurrayi (b. 1982) is a Luritja artist who was born in Kintore on the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Ngambri Woman

Narelle Zeller

Pleasures from the studio of Hilda Rix Nicholas

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

Paris to Monaro

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.

Who’s that lady?, 2014

by Ferne Millen

Dr John Yu

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

Now & then

Penelope Seidler

Magazine article, 2024

Photographed 60 years apart, these portraits trace the lives and love story of Penelope Seidler AM and Harry Seidler OBE.

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.

Kew House 2: Bedtime, 2009

by Bronek Kozka

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

Nick Cave, Susie Bick and Luke Cave, 1998 (printed 2020) Dominique Issermann. Courtesy of the artist © Dominique Issermann

Stepping out

Devotion

Beautiful punk love

Ryan Presley: Paradise won

Previous exhibition, 2023

Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley’s major installation greets you as you arrive at the Gallery, in a work that invites conversations about the ongoing legacies of colonisation.

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2023

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

Bob Ansett Robert Ansett

Australian-born but schooled in the United States, he returned to Australia in 1965 to start the Budget Rent a Car System.

1 portrait in the collection

Henry Meyer

Contemporary women artists make Australian history

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

2 portraits in the collection

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

So Fine

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.

Kiffy Rubbo 2, 1979, 1979 (printed 2012)

Robert Rooney

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

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

Robert Rooney

by Nat Thomas & Concettina Inserra

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Portrait of mother (after Mirka), 2008

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

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize

Prizes and awards

The competition is for Australian school students and home-schooled students aged from 5-18 years.

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

Magazine article by Stuart Purves, 2016

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

Bonfire of the vanities

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

Cook in context

Magazine article by Diana Warnes, 2007

Robert Oatley's continuing benefaction has helped the National Portrait Gallery acquire works that add another layer to the story of Captain Cook.

Beau Dean Riley Smith, Wiradjuri and Gamilaraay nations, Bennelong

Jacob Nash

Beau Dean Riley Smith, Wiradjuri and Gamilaraay nations, Bennelong

Jacob Nash

The Photographic Society of Victoria, Melbourne

Thomas Pearce, c. 1878

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite on card

Purchased 2010

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.

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.

Natalie Bassingthwaighte by Peter Brew-Bevan

Stealing moments

On-set stills photographers have no control over the momentum of filming that surrounds them. Using 'blimp' housings so camera clicks are inaudible, the photographers are a subtle presence on set.

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

David Cossini

Godfrey's amazing man. I've known him for four years now. He has a very tough story.

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

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

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.

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.

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

NYSPP 2010

An annual event, the National Youth Self Portrait Prize seeks to encourage young people to embrace self portraiture and its expressive possibilities.

Ron Tandberg

Ron Tandberg (1943-2018), cartoonist, was working as a teacher when he contributed his first cartoon to the Education section of the Age in the early 1970s.

1 portrait in the collection

Rosalie Kunoth-Monks OAM

Rosalie Kunoth-Monks OAM (1937-2022), Arrernte and Anmatjere woman, Aboriginal activist, former actress and nun, was born at Artekerre soak on Utopia Cattle Station in the Northern Territory, the daughter of Allan and Ruby Kunoth.

2 portraits in the collection

Betina Fauvel-Ogden

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

2 portraits in the collection

Elizabeth Jolley AO

Archived media releases 2015

Elizabeth Jolley AO (1923-2007) was a West Australian writer. Born in England, she worked as a nurse during the war and after migrating to Western Australia in 1959, when she also worked as a cleaner and saleswoman.

1 portrait in the collection

Wendy Whiteley in conversation with Janet Hawley

19 October 2015

Wendy Whiteley in candid conversation with Janet Hawley to celebrate the release of the book Wendy Whiteley and The Secret Garden.

Goollabal (Rainbow Serpent), 2018 by Shirley Purdie

Memories

The second row of paintings recall stories relating to specific sites, experiences and activities.

We Were Just Little Boys

Tace Stevens

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

Art Handler's Award 2023

The Art Handlers' Award for 2023 went to Ugandan Ssebabi, 2022 by David Cossini.

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

Marion Halligan

Marion Halligan AM (1940–2024) is a novelist, short story writer, reviewer and essayist.

1 portrait in the collection

John Schaeffer AO

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

1 portrait in the collection

Joanna Gilmour

Portrait, conté crayon and charcoal on paper

Joanna Gilmour is the Curator, Collection & Research at the National Portrait Gallery.

Ina Gregory, c. 1895

E. Phillips Fox

Purchased 2012

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

The first nurse

Magazine article by Tamsin Hong, 2016

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

Potters' Portrait Pot, 2009

Hermannsburg Potters, Irene Mbitjana Entata, Virginia Mbitjana Rontji, Lindy Panangka Rontji, Rahel Kngwarria Ungwanaka, Rona Panangka Rubuntja, Dawn Ngala Wheeler, Judith Pungarta Inkamala, Anita Ratara Mbitjana, Hayley Panangka Coulthard, Clara Ngala Inkamala

Portrait, fired terracotta clay, underglaze

Commissioned 2009

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

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

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 (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

Who's Jo?

Find out about the curator of the exhibition.

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

Lyndon Dadswell CMG

Portrait, cast bronze

Purchased 2004

William Yang

Recorded 2022

Matthew Reilly

Portrait photography by John Elliott

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

1 portrait in the collection

Thousand Mile Stare

Previous exhibition, 2004

Thousand mile stare provides a unique portrait of people of rural Australia

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

Roy and HG: John Doyle as Roy Slaven (L) and Grieg Pickhaver as HG Nelson: in studio (radio), c. 1990 Reproduced by permission of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Library Sales. © 1990 ABC

Relationship boundaries breed marathon success

Nearest & Dearest

A bromance in banter

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

Phillip Gudthaykudthay

Philip Gudthaykudthay (b. 1935) Liyagalawumirr (Yolgnu) bark painter, worked as a young man as a stockman, fencer and crocodile hunter around Milingimbi and Ramingining.

1 portrait 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

Don Bachardy

Don Bachardy (b. 1935) is a portraitist who chronicles literary, musical, artistic and film personalities associated with Los Angeles.

3 portraits 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

Magazine article by William Yang, 2022

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

2 portraits in the collection

Miscellaneous obsessions

William Yang shares the stories behind his autobiographical self portraits that celebrate his cultural heritage and identity.

Richard Morecroft & Alison Mackay, 2016 by Gary Grealy

Gary Grealy wins National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017

31 March 2017

Archived media releases 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

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

Ken Done, 1987

Rennie Ellis

Purchased 2006

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

Ludwig Lang after Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

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

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

Your backstage pass to 70s and 80s sounds and scenes

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Jimmy Barnes at The Coogee Bay Hotel 1984 (detail) Grant Matthews

Pub Rock

Previous exhibition, 2020

Celebrate the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on our nation’s identity.

Fetteresso (Sir Robert Duff), 1883

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

Purchased 2015

Miss Florrie Ford (Christmas pantomime with toy cat)

Florrie Forde

Support your Portrait Gallery

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

Sid Myer AM in front of Helena Rubinstein in a red brocade Balenciaga gown 1957 by Graham Sutherland. Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC, Tim Fairfax AC and the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2015.

Foundation

The Foundation encourages gifts, donations, bequests and legacies in service of the Gallery's mission.

Patrick White with Tom Jones, 1956

Axel Poignant

Ben Hall and his gang outdone, 6 February 1865

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

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

Wainburranga

Wainburranga (Paddy Fordham) (c. 1932-2006), Rembarrnga painter, sculptor, printmaker and dancer, lived in the bush before moving to Maranboy, where he first saw white people.

1 portrait 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

Norman Lindsay, 1921

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

Henry Reynolds

Henry Reynolds (b. 1938), historian, studied at the University of Tasmania before taking up a lectureship at Townsville University College (later James Cook University) in 1965.

1 portrait in the collection

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

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

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

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.

Chris Lilley, Ja’mie, Private School Girl publicity by John Tsiavis

Working with the stars

Photographic portraiture constructs, projects and reinforces images of Australian personalities. The public persona, brand or personal image of an actor, comedian, presenter or musician is partly defined by their portrait – at least for a moment.

Jessica Mauboy

Recorded 2018

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

Previous exhibition, 2022

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.

Disillusion self portrait, 1983

Mary MacQueen

Portrait, pastel and charcoal on paper

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

Portrait, woodcut on paper

Gift of Pamela Thalben-Ball 2007

Patrick White, 1990

Rick Amor

Gift of the artist 2005. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

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

Portrait, watercolour and gouache on vellum

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

2 portraits in the collection

'words are the daughters of the earth' Marion Halligan, 2002

Leeanne Crisp

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004

Round the World (Thomas Brassey), 1877

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

Purchased 2015

Tjayanka Woods

Portrait, cast plaster, patinated on wooden base

Tjayanka Woods (d. 2014) was a senior Pitjantjatjara artist and cultural custodian.

2 portraits in the collection

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

Patrick White, 1987

an unknown artist after Thomas Bock

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

Jane Franklin, c. 1866-1875

Portrait, carved marble relief

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Glenn Murcutt

Recorded 2017

Charles Kean

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

The Bushranger Tragedy (from The Australasian Sketcher, 23 November 1878)

Thomas McIntyre

A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.

1 portrait in the collection

Dan Kelly

A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2003

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

Australians in Hollywood

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

Portrait of an Artist (Self portrait), 1944

David Strachan

Portrait, oil on canvas board

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Thomas Lonigan

A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.

1 portrait in the collection

Sergeant Michael Kennedy

A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.

1 portrait in the collection

Michael Scanlan

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

A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.

1 portrait in the collection

Rt. Honourable Lord Hawkesbury, 1808

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

Arthur Streeton, Nora Streeton (nee Clench) and Pat, the dog

The Streetons’ rich serenade

Passion

If music be the food of love

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

Walala Tjapaltjarri

Walala Tjapaltjarri (c. 1965–1975) and his family shot to fame in 1984 when they left their nomadic desert life and joined family in the community of Kiwirrkura in Western Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Penny Tweedie

Aboriginal people and their culture have been the focus of much of Penny Tweedie's photography during the last period of her career.

47 portraits in the collection

Arthur and Ria Murch, 1945

Margaret Michaelis

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 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

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.

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, 1827

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

The Hinders: doyens of Australian modernism

Passion

Progressive partnership

Warumpi Band

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

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

The Tichborne Claimant (Arthur Orton), c. 1872

Maull & Co Photographers

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Wainburranga (Paddy Fordham), 1986

Purchased 2005

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

Don Watson

Don Watson (b. 1949), writer, is an authority on aspects of Australian history, culture, politics and language.

1 portrait in the collection

Justin Tjungurrayi, 2007

Portrait, inkjet print on cotton rag paper

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

Nam Le, 2010

Rozalind Drummond

Purchased 2010

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.

Nam Le

Nam Le (b. 1978), writer, came to Australia as a baby with his Vietnamese refugee parents.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Magazine article by Ellen Kent, 2007

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pours soil into the hand of traditional land owner Vincent Lingiari

A handful of sand

Ellen Kent examines the portrait of Vincent Lingiari and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam taken by photographer Mervyn Bishop.

Of Burke, Wills ... and wills

It's Complicated

Infatuation and (ill-fated) exploration

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

Tommy Tycho AM MBE

Tommy Tycho AM MBE (1928-2013), musician, began studying at the Conservatorium of Music in his native Budapest at the age of eight.

1 portrait 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

She saved his life. He showed her painting.

Nearest & Dearest

Leaders, painters, friends

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

Thilin-Thilin Gooragall Nyajaringil Garnkiny-nu (white gum tree, mother for the moon), 2018 by Shirley Purdie

Storytelling

The fourth row of paintings interweave Ngarranggarni, memories, relationships and Country.

Ted Dyson, Bill Dyson (with pipe) and Percy

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

Previous exhibition, 2017

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Collection in focus: Brook Andrew

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

Anthony Mundine, 1992 (printed 2008)

Mervyn Bishop

Learning resource archive

Purchased 2008

Free Range Cousins, 2015 by Jennifer Stocks

Children of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2016

Learning resource

Senses, movement and imagination in portraits of children from the 2016 Prize. For Year 1 - 3 students.

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

Portrait, charcoal heightened with white chalk on paper

Charles Warman Roberts (1821–1894), publican, was born in Sydney, the eldest son of free settler parents who emigrated to Australia in 1821.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Sidney Kidman, 1932

Samuel Woolf

Purchased 2009

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

Hugh Ramsay

Previous exhibition, 2000

Gift of the Estate of John Oswald Wicking 2003

Sporting Archibald

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

Jean Bellette, 1937

Adrian Lawlor

Portrait, oil on composition board

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Atong Atem

Artists and Collectives

Atong Atem is an Ethiopian-born, South Sudanese artist and writer living in Narrm/Melbourne. Her work explores migrant narratives and postcolonial practices in the African diaspora.

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

Portrait, photographic print from film on paper

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

David Gulpilil's Hands, 2004

Ross Honeysett

Gift of the artist 2021

To coin a (farewell) phrase

Devotion

A penny for their thoughts

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

Famous

Karin Catt Portraits

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

Evert Ploeg

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

7 portraits in the collection

Henry Reynolds, 2012

Dave Tacon

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Ada Bird Petyarre

Ada Bird Petyarre (c. 1930–2009), painter and printmaker, was an Anmatyerre woman from the Northern Territory, and one of seven sisters who all became notable artists.

1 portrait in the collection

A Meeting of Great Minds

Thomas Woolner in Australia

The story behind Rick Amor's portrait of Professor Peter Doherty.

Missing Persons

Desperately seeking Woolner medallions

Tamara Tchinarova

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

2 portraits in the collection

Ngarranggarni

The third row of paintings come from Ngarranggarni (Dreaming).

Us Mob

Previous exhibition, 2007

Us Mob were an Aboriginal rock band active in the 1970s and 1980s. The band's members Rodney Ansell, Pedro Butler, Carroll Karpany and Wally McArthur formed the band at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music in Adelaide.

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.

Indecent exposure

Annette Kellerman

Previous exhibition, 2011

'Diving Venus' and 'the perfect woman' are two of the numerous descriptions applied to Annette Kellerman, who achieved international fame during the early decades of the twentieth century.

Portraits and other stories

Magazine article by Christine Clark, 2006

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.

Michelle de Kretser

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2008

Michelle de Kretser (b. 1957), author, came to Melbourne with her Sinhalese Dutch parents in 1972.

1 portrait in the collection

Alexander Pearce
executed for murder
July 19th 1824

Public hanging

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

Songman, portrait of Kev Carmody, 2006

Peter Hudson

Courtesy of Kev Carmody, Song Cycles Pty Ltd.

Rosie Batty AO

Rosie Batty AO (b. 1962), campaigner against family violence, became well known to the Australian public in early 2014, when her eleven-year-old son Luke was murdered by his father as she stood waiting to take him home from cricket practice.

1 portrait in the collection

John Bell, c. 1968

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

David Malangi Daymirringu, 1986

Purchased 2005

Peter Hudson

Peter Hudson (b. 1950), is a landscape and portrait painter who lives and works in Maleny, Queensland.

5 portraits in the collection

Rosalie Kunoth, 1953 printed 1958

Purchased 2016

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

Portrait, direct positive colour photograph on paper

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

Miranda Otto, 1997

Montalbetti + Campbell

Gift of the artists 2003

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

Mr Thake - Dr So and So, 1959

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

Julian Kingma

Julian Kingma (b. 1968), photographer, began his career in 1988 as a cadet for the Herald newspaper in Melbourne, and later worked for the Sunday Age as Head Features Photographer.

11 portraits 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

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize

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

Entry guidelines 2024

Read the full requirements for entering the prize.

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

Naomi Hobson

Artists and Collectives

Multidisciplinary artist Naomi Hobson, of the Kaantju language group and Patta skin group, after the Death Adder snake, lives and works on Country in Coen, Cape York Peninsula addressing powerful links between Country and identity.

Elle Macpherson

Elle Macpherson (b. 1964) is an entrepreneur, model, actor and television host.

1 portrait in the collection

Narelle Autio

Recorded 2018

Paul Kelly, 2007

Peter Brew-Bevan

Gift of the artist 2012

Portrait of Rosie Batty Unveiled at Portrait Gallery

24 January 2018

Portrait, pastel on paper

The National Portrait Gallery has unveiled a newly commissioned portrait of Australian domestic violence campaigner and 2015 Australian of the Year Rosie Batty.

Margaret Anderson, 1942

Napier Waller CMG OBE

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Ningali Lawford-Wolf

Previous exhibition, 2009

Recorded 1996

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

NYSPP 2009

An annual event, the National Youth Self Portrait Prize seeks to encourage young people to embrace self portraiture and its expressive possibilities.

Portrait of Marjorie Cotton, 1969

Jean Isherwood OAM

Portrait, direct positive colour photograph

Gift of Marjorie Cotton Isherwood 2002

Miranda Otto, 1997

Montalbetti + Campbell

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artists 2003

Tan Le

Recorded 2018

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

Portraits for Posterity

Drawn from some of the many donations made to the Gallery's collection, the exhibition Portraits for Posterity pays homage both to the remarkable (and varied) group of Australians who are portrayed in the portraits and the generosity of the many donors who have presented them to the Gallery.

David Alexander Stewart Campbell

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

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

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

Phillip Gudthaykudthay, 1986

Portrait, direct positive colour photograph on paper

Purchased 2005

Miranda Otto, 1997

Montalbetti + Campbell

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artists 2003

Simon Tedeschi unplugged, 2002

Cherry Hood

Portrait, watercolour on canvas

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

Nyangatja Ngayuku Mara (These are my hands)

Rhett Hammerton

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

Wenten Rubuntja AM

Wenten Rubuntja AM (1923–2005) was an Arrernte law man, committee and board member, artist, historian, storyteller and intermediary.

2 portraits 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

Purchased with funds provided by Robert Oatley AO 2007

Robert Drewe (in the swell), 2006

Nicholas Harding

Purchased 2010

Portrait of Bennilong, a Native of New Holland

Portrait of Bennilong, a Native of New Holland, c. 1810

Portrait, oil on masonite

Purchased 2014

Alan Marshall, 1971

Noel Counihan

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Barrie and Jenny Hadlow 2015

The life of Bryant

Magazine article by Tenille Hands, 2018

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

Portrait of Mrs Sarah Fairfax, c. 1864

Edwin Dalton

Portrait, pastel on paper laid on canvas

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

Malarndirri Barbara McCarthy

Previous exhibition, 2013

Malarndirri Barbara McCarthy is a Yanyuwa woman from Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

1 portrait in the collection

Paul Kelly and The Portraits

Aspects of singer songwriter Paul Kelly’s performance persona are communicated by portraits selected from a range of artists and leading music photographers in this focus exhibition.

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.

Portrait, pencil on paper

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

Pat Mackie, 2004

Nancy Borlase AM

Purchased 2004

Louise Sauvage OAM

Louise Sauvage OAM (b. 1973) is a four-time Paralympian who dominated international wheelchair track racing from the early 1990s.

1 portrait in the collection

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Let’s look closely at the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022 together! For students and family groups.

Trucaninny [Trukanini], wife of Woureddy [Wurati]

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

Benjamin Law

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Alan Marshall, n.d.

Portrait, fibre-tipped pen and pen and ink on paper laid down on cardboard

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

Tamara Tchinarova, 1938

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

Ben McNamara

This is Marissa Gallagher from Kintore, which if you're in Alice Springs, just go west until the WA border, just before that, a traditional area of Pintupi mob.

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.

Bill Neidjie OAM

Magazine article by Tara James, 2024

Bill Neidjie OAM (c. 1913-2002), a Gagadju man, was the traditional custodian of the Kakadu area of the Northern Territory and spent most of his childhood in this region.

1 portrait in the collection

Tara Gower and Baden Hitchcock, Chicago, 2019 Lisa Tomasetti

Stillness in movement

Tara James shares the joy of dance and its power to connect in the National Portrait Gallery’s touring exhibition Dancer.

Nambin (black headed python), 2018 by Shirley Purdie

Skin names

The first row of paintings depict stories relating to kinship, introducing significant women relatives.

Elizabeth Rouse

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

Jane Campion DNZM

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

Jane Campion DNZM (b. 1954), director, producer and screenwriter, is the first woman to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the second woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, both for her acclaimed film The Piano (1993).

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, n.d.

Ada May Plante

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

Turia Pitt

Previous exhibition, 2009

Turia Pitt (b. 1987), author, businesswoman, motivational speaker and athlete, grew up in Ulladulla, New South Wales and studied engineering and science at the University of NSW, graduating in 2010.

1 portrait in the collection

OBEY

Shepard Fairey Posters

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

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009

Previous exhibition, 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.

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

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

Portrait, oil on composition board

Portrait of Elizabeth Jolley, 2003

Mary Moore

Commissioned with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2003

Nancy Wake - The White Mouse, 2001

Melissa Beowulf

an unknown artist, The Australasian Sketcher

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004

The Bushranger Tragedy (from The Australasian Sketcher, 23 November 1878), 1878

Portrait, wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2003

Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II (Blue)

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

Polly Borland

Brenda L Croft, Prue Hazelgrove, Richard Crampton

Purchased 2021

Men of High Degree: Kev Carmody (Bundjalung/Lama Lama Peoples)

Men of High Degree: Kev Carmody (Bundjalung/Lama Lama Peoples), 2023

Portrait, original wet plate collodion process tintype, digital scan to Ultrachrome pigment on paper

Purchased 2023

Peter Elliott, 1964

Jon Molvig

Portrait, oil on masonite

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

Helen Garner, 2004

Julian Kingma

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006

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, oil on cardboard

Portrait, daguerreotype

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

Portrait of Alan Marshall, 1955

Lina Bryans

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Portrait of Bennilong, Native of New Holland

Portrait of Bennilong, Native of New Holland, c. 1798

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

Jeff Carter with his dog Annie Rose at Foxground NSW

Jeff Carter with his dog Annie Rose at Foxground NSW, 2000 (printed 2017)

Robert McFarlane

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Leisel Jones, 2015 (printed 2021)

Peter Brew-Bevan

Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2021

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.

Before Too Long

The story behind the creation of the portrait of singer-songwriter Paul Kelly by the artist Jon Campbell.

Person and Place

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

The connection between land and identity holds great significance in Australia. While for First Nations people, person and place are intertwined both culturally and spiritually, forming an intrinsic union between Country and self, stories of colonisation and migration are also deeply bound to this nation.

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.

TJ Smith and Tulloch, 1960 (printed 2003)

Ern McQuillan OAM

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

Patrick White

Portrait, charcoal and oil on canvas

Patrick White (1912–1990), acknowledged as Australia’s pre-eminent novelist of the 20th century, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973 for The Eye of the Storm, ‘for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature’.

7 portraits in the collection

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

Shirley Hazzard

Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016) writer, spent her childhood in Sydney but left with her parents at the age of sixteen for South East Asia and New Zealand.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of Brenda Niall, 1997

Judy Cassab AO CBE

Gift of Dr Brenda Niall AO 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The Bath Butterfly

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

To the end of the earth

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

Audio description

Access

Hear and read detailed audio descriptions of selected artworks from our Collection as we turn the visual into the verbal.

Noni Hazlehurst, 1977 (printed 2011)

Lorrie Graham

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Barton and Watson, 1902

G. H. Dancey

Purchased 2012

Ivan Gaal

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

1 portrait in the collection

Bill Neidjie, 2000 (printed 2008)

Mark Lang

Self Portraits in Australia

Gift of the artist 2008

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

Heath Bergersen

Heath Bergersen (b. 1976) is an Indigenous actor working across Australian television series and movies.

1 portrait in the collection

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

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

Ruth Cracknell

Portrait, pastel and coloured pencil on paper

Ruth Cracknell AM (1925–2002), actor, became a household name through her character Maggie Beare in the ABC comedy Mother and Son, which ran from 1985 to 1994.

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

Magazine article by Karl James, 2016

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

Portrait of Private Edward Lello 1915 by Darge Photographic Company

Final frame

Karl James reflects on soldier portraiture during the Great War.

With a Little Help from my Friends

The story behind the acquisition of the portrait of Danish architect Jørn Utzon.

William Edward Harney

NPPP 2012 learning resource

William Edward (Bill) Harney (1895–1962), bushman and raconteur, spent his childhood in Charters Towers and Cairns and started working as a stockman and boundary rider at the age of twelve.

2 portraits in the collection

Andrew Campbell

An interview with the photographer.

Gail Kelly, 2018

by Paul Newton

Commissioned with funds provided by Westpac Group and Optus 2018

Wurati

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

Wenten Rubuntja, 2001

an unknown artist after Albert Chevallier Tayler

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

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

Portrait, chromolithograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Caroline Jones AO

Caroline Jones AO (1938–2022), journalist and broadcaster, joined the ABC in 1963 and five years later became Australia's first female current affairs reporter when she began working on This Day Tonight.

2 portraits in the collection

Peter Skrzynecki OAM

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2004

Of Polish/Ukrainian descent, Peter Skrzynecki was born in 1945 in Germany and came to Australia with his parents in 1949.

1 portrait in the collection

Velasquez Touch

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

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

Rick Smolan

Portrait, glass plate negative

Rick Smolan (b. 1949) began his career as a photographer for Time, Life and National Geographic.

2 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.

Pat Mackie

Pat Mackie (1914–2009), union leader, led the Mount Isa strike of 1964–65 that polarised the town and almost bankrupted Mount Isa Mining.

1 portrait in the collection

Murray Bail

Brook Andrew, Larry Rawling

Murray Bail (b. 1941), writer, was born in Adelaide and spent several years in India and England in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

3 portraits in the collection

Peace, the Man and Hope, 2005

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.

Simon Tedeschi

Simon Tedeschi (b. 1981), award-winning classical pianist, grew up in Sydney, and essentially abandoned his school lessons as an adolescent to concentrate on his piano studies with Neta Maughan.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Murray Bail, 1980-1981

Fred Williams

Gift of an anonymous donor 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Stevie Wright

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

2 portraits in the collection

Meryl Tankard AO

NPPP 2020 exhibition essay

Meryl Tankard AO (b. 1955) is an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, director and filmmaker.

1 portrait in the collection

Writing on the Wall, 2019 Dr Christian Thompson AO

To arrive at hope

Penelope Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2020 Prize.

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

Do you know more?

The National Portrait Gallery is calling on family history enthusiasts and amateur historians to help reveal more about the people in Dempsey’s People: A folio of British street portraits from 1824-1844.

Collection: Icons

Volume Two

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.

Ann Moyal, 1957

Pamela Thalben-Ball

Gift of Ann Moyal 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

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

Anne Summers AO

an unknown artist, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office

Anne Summers AO (b. 1945), writer and feminist, became involved in women's rights while studying politics at the University of Adelaide in the 1960s.

6 portraits in the collection

Captain Matthew Flinders RN, 1814

Portrait, stipple engraving on paper

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

Meryl Tankard, 2005

Ingvar Kenne

Gift of the artist 2006

Portrait 64

Summer 2019/20

Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2023–25

Marian Anderson, emerging photographer Charles Dennington, piscatorial portraits, and the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou and more.

National Portrait Gallery staff creating a rainbow for WorldPride 2023

Who we are and what we do

The National Portrait Gallery is an award-winning building situated within Canberra’s Parliamentary Triangle, the symbolic centre of Australia’s capital city on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land.

Darling Portrait Prize 2024

The Darling Portrait Prize is a biennial national prize for Australian portrait painting honouring the legacy of Mr L Gordon Darling AC CMG.

William Macleod

William Macleod, artist and magazine proprietor, attended the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts as a young teenager and saw his first illustration published in 1866.

4 portraits in the collection

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

The selfie stick

Last week ABC Television came to interview me about selfie sticks. The story was prompted by the announcement that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has lately prohibited the use of these inside their galleries. So far as I am aware we have not yet encountered the phenomenon, but no doubt we will before too long.

Portrait 66

Summer 2021/22

The Huxleys, National Portrait Gallery London’s masterpieces, Jennifer Higgie on portraits of women by women, Tamara Dean, Bangarra, Glynis Jones on fashion photographers, and NPG/NGV collaboration.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023

We encourage you to look, to feel, to think, to question and most importantly, to identify and connect.

Rachel Griffiths, 2002 (printed 2004)

Karin Catt

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

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

Walala Tjapaltjarri, 2009

Portrait, inkjet print on cotton rag paper

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

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020

Previous exhibition, 2020

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.

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.

Helen Garner

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2011

Helen Garner (b. 1942), author and journalist, is one of Australia's best-known writers.

8 portraits in the collection

True fella

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

Wesley Enoch AM

Wesley Enoch AM (b. 1969) is a theatre director and playwright and was the director of the Sydney Festival from 2017 to 2021.

1 portrait in the collection

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

New exhibition tells big stories through pint-sized portraits

2 November 2018

Previous exhibition, 2019

The National Portrait Gallery is bringing the Victorian era back to life in a special exhibition exploring the colour and character of post-goldrush Australia.

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.

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

Garrett Huxley

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

3 portraits in the collection

Us Mob, Rock Against Racism Concert, Paddington Town Hall

Us Mob, Rock Against Racism Concert, Paddington Town Hall, 1980 (printed 2021)

Purchased 2021

Us Mob, Paddington Town Hall, 1980 (printed 2021)

an unknown artist, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office

Purchased 2021

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

Ria Murch

Magazine article by Lauretta Morton, 2006

Ria Murch (1918-2014), writer and muse, was brought up in King’s Cross and attended the Thosophist school in Mosman before acquiring secretarial skills at Miss Hales Business College.

1 portrait in the collection

The news from Washington

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

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa

Husbands and Wives

Photographic Portraits from 19th Century Australia

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

The Dissecting Room

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.

Charles Teo AM

Previous exhibition, 2023

Charles Teo AM (b. 1957) is a neurosurgeon. Born in Sydney, where he attended Scots College and graduated in medicine and surgery from the University of New South Wales, he worked for some years at the Children’s Medical Center, Dallas, Texas and was Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Arkansas.

1 portrait in the collection

Time and light

In Gallery Seven

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.

Four from the 30s

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2003

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

Previous exhibition, 2017

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

1 portrait in the collection

Nicholas Harding

28 Portraits

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.

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

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2011

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

The numbers man

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

E.O. Hoppé

Support your Portrait Gallery

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

Corporate Support

Our partners play a vital role in the expansion of the Gallery’s programs, exhibitions and the ongoing development of the collection.

William Hardy Wilson

Magazine article by Jessica Bolton, 2017

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

Mia Wasikowska as Robyn Davidson at Hamelin Pool, 2013 by Matt Nettheim

Hump days

Jessica Bolton navigates the parallel tracks documenting Robyn Davidson’s astonishing journey.

Ken Wyatt, 2019 (printed 2020)

Alex Ellinghausen

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2008

Purchased 2022

Lovers of light

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

William Johnson (1873—1948) by Percy Leason

Recognition

Percy Leason's Aboriginal Portraits

Previous exhibition, 1999

Originally conceived as an anthropological record, Percy Leason’s powerful 1934 portraits of Victorian Aboriginal people are today considered to be a highlight of 20th century Australian portraiture

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.

Portrait 67

Winter 2022

William Yang on his autobiographical self portraits, David Parker's 1970s and 80s Melbourne music photographs, seven-time NPPP finalist Chris Budgeon, and Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis.

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

Ben Mendelsohn

Ben Mendelsohn (b. 1969), actor, spent much of his early childhood abroad as his father, a leading medical researcher, worked in Europe and the USA.

2 portraits in the collection

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

Kev Carmody

Acclaimed singer songwriter and activist Kevin Daniel Carmody (Kev Carmody) is a Bundjalung/Lama Lama man born in Cairns in 1946.

2 portraits in the collection

Grace Cossington Smith OBE

Portraits in the Landscape

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

1 portrait in the collection

Open Air

Previous exhibition, 2008

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

Tommy Tycho, 1986

Calvin Winetroube

Portrait, colour photolithograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Vicky Tycho 2013

Marjorie Cotton Isherwood

Magazine article by David Ward, 2010

Marjorie Cotton Isherwood (1913–2003) was the first professionally qualified children's librarian in New South Wales and many of her initiatives continue today.

1 portrait in the collection

Hide/Seek

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

Zhou Xiaoping

Zhou Xiaoping, born and educated in China, is a Melbourne-based artist.

1 portrait in the collection

Duke of Wellington, 1841

John Lucas

Portrait, oil on masonite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

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

After Dante’s Inferno, 2018 Sarah Rhodes © the artist

Observation point

Magazine article by Sarah Rhodes, 2019

I met Clara while teaching photomedia at the University of Tasmania last year. One of her assignments focused on her relationship with her former boyfriend, who she now works for as his live-in carer.

Subtle emotion

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2010

Christopher Chapman considers photographer Rozalind Drummond's portrait of author Nam Le.

Bon Scott & Angus Young, Atlanta, Georgia

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

Rennie Ellis

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Purchased 2010

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

Magazine article by Peter Wilmoth, 2016

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Peter Wilmoth, age 12, with copies of Our World 1974 Courtesy of the author

Paper, boy

Peter Wilmoth’s boy-journalist toolkit for antagonising an Australian political giant.

John Bradfield

Australian Athletes in Focus

John Bradfield (1867-1943), engineer, was a key figure in the development of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and inner city transport network.

1 portrait in the collection

Flash

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

Ben Quilty

Magazine article by Alistair McGhie, 2009

Ben Quilty (b. 1973), painter, gained bachelor’s degrees in painting and visual communication at Sydney College of the Arts and the University of Western Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Winning in technicolor

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.

First Ladies

Significant Australian Women 1913–2013

Previous exhibition, 2013

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

Clara Crosbie, aged 12 years, now on exhibition at the Australian Waxworks

Clara Crosbie, aged 12 years, now on exhibition at the Australian Waxworks, c. 1885

Carrington Photo Galleries

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John McPhee 2018

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO (c. 1932–2002) was a founding member of the artists cooperative established at Papunya in the early 1970s and one of the most renowned practitioners within the Western Desert art movement.

2 portraits in the collection

Peter Goldsworthy AM

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize

Peter Goldsworthy AM (b. 1951), medical doctor and writer, was born in Minlaton, South Australia, and grew up in various country towns as his father, a school teacher, moved for work.

2 portraits in the collection

Frequently asked questions 2024

Answers to your questions about entering the prize.

William Baker Ashton

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

1 portrait in the collection

Gary Foley

Gary Foley (b. 1950) is a Gumbainggir activist, actor, historian, curator and academic.

2 portraits in the collection

John Gould

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

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

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.

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

200 Years of Portraiture

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

Australian Visit

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2008

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.

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

High & Bligh

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

Shirley Purdie

Contributing artists

Born: 1947, Gilbun – Mabel Downs Station, WA
Works: Warmun, WA

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

Purchased 2011

David 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.

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.

J.C. Williamson, c. 1913

John Longstaff

Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2023–25

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

National Portrait Gallery and Access2Arts staff presenting on audio description at the Australian Museums and Galleries Association National Conference

Our achievements to date

During the period 2018–20, the Gallery implemented our first Access Action Plan.

Copeman, gardener, Great Yarmouth by John Dempsey

Calling all family history buffs

3 July 2017

Archived media releases 2017

The National Portrait Gallery is calling on family history enthusiasts and amateur historians to tell it more about the people in its new show, Dempsey’s People: A folio of British street portraits from 1824-1844.

Philip Williams

During 46 years as a journalist, Philip Williams (b. 1957) covered the world’s biggest news events.

1 portrait in the collection

The Coronation Theatre, Westminster Abbey: A Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2012

Imagination

Dr Sarah Engledow tells the story of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee portrait by Australian artist Ralph Heimans.

David Williamson, 1974 (printed 2001)

Gordon Glenn

Purchased 2001

R. M. Williams AO CMG

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

Tim Winton, 2004

Quentin Jones

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2001

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Me Myself I

Andrew Sayers explores the self-portraits created by Australian artist Sidney Nolan.

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

Benjamin Law

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Herra Pahlasari

by Aminudin TH Siregar

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2020

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

About grace

Penelope Grist finds philanthropy and fashion underpin the story of Susan Wakil AO.

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

Caroline Jones, 1978

David Campbell

Gift of Elizabeth Campbell-MacKenzie on behalf of the family of David Campbell 2012

20/20 launch speech

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

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

Henry H. Glover

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2021

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Drawn from life

Penelope Grist discovers the rich narratives in Peter Wegner’s series of centenarian portraits.

Caroline Jones, 2009

Salvatore Zofrea OAM

Gift of the artist 2009

Kerry Walker, c. 1979

Stuart Campbell

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Stuart Campbell 2012

Noni Hazlehurst AM

Actor, presenter and broadcaster Noni Hazlehurst AM (b. 1953) studied drama at Flinders University in South Australia, and after graduating gained roles in the television cop shows Division 4, Homicide and Matlock Police.

2 portraits in the collection

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

Ethel Marian (Maie) Casey AC

Previous exhibition, 2005

Ethel Marian (Maie) Casey AC, Baroness Casey (1892-1983), chatelaine, artist, pilot and author, was born in Melbourne, the daughter of the Surgeon General, Sir Charles Ryan.

1 portrait in the collection

Clifton Pugh

Australians

This exhibition offers a comprehensive display of Clifton Pugh's portraits revealing his development and growth from tonal paintings to a unique style that was in demand from politicians, artists, academics and Australian personalities.

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.

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

Anne Zahalka

Photo media artist Anne Zahalka was born in Sydney in 1957, following her parent’s migration to post-war Australia.

19 portraits in the collection

Henry Edwards

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

Wally (Wouter) De Backer, 2013 (printed 2014)

Julian Kingma

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

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.

Patrick White and Manoly Lascaris, 1987

Portrait, coloured chalk on artist board

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

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (future Queen Elizabeth II)

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

Charles Wheeler

Purchased 2019

Alan Marshall AM OBE

Alan Marshall AM OBE (1902-1984), writer, began life in Victoria’s Western District.

4 portraits in the collection

Brett Whiteley - portrait 1, 1975

Archived media releases 2016

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

Charles (still from video) by Amiel Courtin-Wilson

The Winner of the Digital Portraiture Award 2016 is...

2 December 2016

The winner of the Digital Portraiture Award 2016 has been announced. Congratulations to Amiel Courtin-Wilson for his submission titled Charles.

Patrick White #1, 1980

William Yang

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Purchased 1998

Naked nostalgia

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

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

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

Kerry Walker AM

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

Kerry Walker AM, actor, graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1974 and made her professional stage debut in a melée in Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet with the Australian Ballet.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Australian of the Year

Inspiring a Nation

The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.

Stevie Wright, 2003 (printed 2005)

Gregory McBean

NPPP 2012 learning resource

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005

Adrian Brown

An interview with the photographer.

Making Portraits

Five Years of National Portrait Gallery Commissions

Previous exhibition, 2004

The considered matching of artist to subject has produced an amazing collection of unique and original works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery

David Unaipon

David Unaipon (1872-1967) writer, public speaker and inventor, was a Ngarrindjeri man, fourth of nine children of the evangelist James Ngunaitponi and his wife Nymbulda, both of whom were Yaraldi speakers.

1 portrait in the collection

Vivan Sundaram

by Rakhee Balaram

Archived media releases 2012

Born in 1943 in Simla, Vivan Sundaram’s long career has given him opportunities to work in a range of mediums – painting, installation, assemblage, photography, digital media and film.

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.

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.

Grateful admiration and brotherly love

In the earliest stages of the Great War, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton was turned into a military hospital, and arrangements made there to accommodate the different dietary and other requirements of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim patients.

Self portrait as Sarah Wisse, Transported

Self portrait as Sarah Wisse, Transported, 1996

Margaret Woodward

Gift of the Karmel family in memory of Lena and Peter Karmel 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

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 India Bednall, 2015

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

Dan the man

Martin Philbey’s portrait of Dan Sultan.

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.

Lady Anne Maria Barkly

Anne Maria Barkly (1838-1932) was the second wife of Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria from December 1856 to September 1863.

1 portrait in the collection

HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2001

Polly Borland

Purchased 2002

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

Stubbs and the horse

Magazine article by Robyn Sweaney, 2016

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.”

Untitled (girl on chair with red shoes) by Violet Frisby

Finding Mrs Frisby

Robyn Sweaney's quiet Violet obsession.

Ned Kelly death mask, date unknown

an unknown artist after Maximilian Kreitmayer

Portrait, cast plaster

Collection: National Portrait Gallery Study Collection, Canberra
Gift of John Molony 2018

Sir John Young, c. 1862

Freeman Brothers

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Angus and the late Peter C. Trumble, 1965, still then a firm advocate of the detachable collar.

Dementia and the arts

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

That principle of equity of access has ever since been a noble aspiration for all public art museums, as it is for us here at the National Portrait Gallery.

Showing character

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

Captain W Kinghorne, 1834

Thomas James Lempriere

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

Dr B Marika AO

Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery

Dr B Marika AO (1954–2021), Yolgnu leader, printmaker, arts administrator, environmentalist and cultural activist, was a member of the renowned Marika family of artists and activists.

2 portraits in the collection

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

Magazine article by Andrew Mayo, 2020

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.

Fly fishing for Atlantic Salmon, Iceland, 2015 Josh Hutchins

Fisheye

Andrew Mayo explores the portrait piscatorial, with help from two of its most creative practitioners.

Gustavus Brooke, c. 1865

Burman and Son

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Clara Crosbie, c. 1885

Arthur William Burman

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Gift of John McPhee 2018

The Burke and Wills Monument, 1869

Thomas Foster Chuck

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

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.

Leigh Bowery, 1984

Robyn Beeche

Archived media releases 2019

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

Update on Temporary Closure of the National Portrait Gallery

15 April 2019

The National Portrait Gallery will close its doors from Tuesday 23 April 2019, but the public are still able to experience the home of portraiture during the four-month closure.

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.

Adrian Rawlins

Archived media releases 2020

Adrian Rawlins (1939-2001), poet, performer and promoter, grew up in a Jewish household in Caulfield and St Kilda.

1 portrait in the collection

Presenting… Shirley Purdie’s Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe

Wednesday 27 May 2020

The National Portrait Gallery this week launches an online exhibition of Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe to coincide with Reconciliation Week.

Introversion from High Jinks in the Hydrangeas, 2020 Tamara Dean

In our nature

Magazine article by Tara James, 2022

Tara James chats with award-winning artist Tamara Dean about portraiture prizes, the environment and the strength of women.

Summertime Fun at the National Portrait Gallery

4 January 2019

Archived media releases 2019

Escape the heat this summer and step inside the National Portrait Gallery for an array of family-fun activities. From storytelling and drawing to music and art, there’s something for everyone to enjoy at the Gallery.

Installation of ‘Face to Face: The New Normal’ at Wagga Wagga Regional Gallery, 2021 Vic McEwan

Facing the feeling

Penelope Grist explores the interplay between medicine and portraiture in Vic McEwan’s Face to Face: The New Normal.

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

Portrait, carte de visite photograph on card

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.

Costa Georgiadis and Director Bree Pickering at the announcement of The People’s Portrait.

Costa Georgiadis wins the National Portrait Gallery’s People’s Portrait

5 March 2025

Media

In 2024, the National Portrait Gallery took the extraordinary step of inviting the Australian public to choose the subject of its next commission. Twenty-five years after the Gallery’s first commission – the iconic Nick Cave by Howard Arkley – and nearly 90 commissions later, the people of Australia were invited to make their voice heard. Who did the public most want to see represented in their National Portrait Gallery?

William Robertson and Martha Mary Robertson

William Robertson and Martha Mary Robertson, 1863

William Edward Kilburn

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

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2015

Thomas Woolner, sculptor, studied first with the brothers Henry and William Behnes, painter and sculptor respectively, and later at the Royal Academy, at which he was to become professor of sculpture in his fifties.

5 portraits in the collection

A.I.

Christopher Chapman ponders our digital identity and selfhood.

Face of South Sudan, 2012 by Melanie Faith Dove

NPPP 2013 exhibition essay

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

Living Memory – National Photographic Portrait Prize extended to January 2022

6 September 2021

In light of recent and ongoing gallery closures brought on by the COVID pandemic, the NPG’s 2021 National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition season will be extended until 16 January next year.

Surface tension

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2012

Joanna Gilmour on the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2013.

Beguiling impressions

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

Lord Kitchener

Imperial strategist

Magazine article by Karen Quinlan AM, 2019

Once central to military strategy and venerated in patriotic households, Lord Kitchener is now largely forgotten.

Girl with Cigarette, c. 1925 by Agnes Goodsir

Agnes enigma

Karen Quinlan considers the case of Agnes Goodsir, whose low profile in Australia belies her overseas acclaim.

Travis Giles, Fitzroy, Melbourne, Australia, 2010 by Nikki Toole

Mind and body

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2012

Christopher Chapman interviews photographer Nikki Toole about her bold and controlled portraits of skateboarders in the exhibition Skater.

Madame Sibly, Phrenologist and Mesmerist

Madame Sibly, Phrenologist and Mesmerist, c. 1870

James E. Bray

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite photograph

Purchased 2017

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.

Virginia Woolf, 1902 George Charles Beresford

Love my way

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2022

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

Star signs

Magazine article by Barry York, 2018

Barry York charts the course from childhood request to autographed celebrity portrait anthology.

Atul Bhalla

by Khavita Singh

Atul Bhalla was born in 1964 in New Delhi. He frequently combines photography, installation, sculpture, video, painting and performance to question the human relationship with the natural and constructed environment.

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

Portrait, oil and polymer vinyl paint on canvas

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

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, 2002

Tim Johnson

Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2002

Reflections on portraiture

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2004

An extract from the 2004 Nuala O'Flaaherty Memorial Lecture at the Queen Victoria Musuem and Art Gallery in Launceston in which Andrew Sayers reflects on the unique qualities of a portrait gallery.

Henry Squires, c. 1861

Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery

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

Purchased 2009

Anna Meares, 2018

by Narelle Autio

Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

Commissioned with funds provided by King & Wood Mallesons 2018

William St. Leonards Robertson, c. 1869

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

Personal Politics

Magazine article by Dr Frances Borzello, 2001

Dr Frances Borzello, British art historian and author discusses the uniqueness of women's self-portraits.

Visiting at a quiet time

Visual Stories

Access support for visitors with sensory sensitivities or autism.

Start Your Engines...

Magazine article by Catherine McDonough, 2006

The bronze sculpture by Julie Edgar reflects through both the material and representation the determined and straight-forward nature of Brabham.

John Flaus

Magazine article by Professor Stephen FitzGerald AO, 2016

John Flaus (b. 1934) is an Australian broadcaster, actor, script editor and lecturer, known for Mary and Max (2009), Trust Frank (2020) and Tracks (2013).

1 portrait in the collection

Recollections of a sinologist sitter

Professor Stephen Fitzgerald, Australia’s first Ambassador to China, traces the historical course from sino-australian cultural engagement to a maturing Australian identity.

Michael Wardell – Country of birth: Ireland 2014 by Jacques van der Merwe

Look who's coming to dinner

Magazine article by Michael Wardell, 2016

Michael Wardell’s personal insight into Jacques van der Merwe’s New Arrivals.

Australian Love Stories

4 January 2021

Archived media releases 2017

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

Hugo Weaving as Horatio Farrat by Ben King Film: The Dressmaker, 2015

If you love movies, you’ll love Starstruck!

8 August 2017

In an unprecedented partnership, the National Portrait Gallery and National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) present a new star-studded exhibition, Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits.

Intense identity

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2009

Dr Chistopher Chapman discusses the portrait of Australian author Christos Tsiolkas taken by John Tsiavis.

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

Black and white history

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

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

Technical terminology

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

Thom Roberts with Burt the Oscar Train 2017 and cushion cover

The Immersive World of Thom Roberts

12 April – 20 July 2025

Media

The first solo exhibition for this multidisciplinary, contemporary Australian artist, The Immersive World of Thom Roberts opens at the National Portrait Gallery on 12 April.

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

The cost of living luxuriously

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2004

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.

101 photographic portraits

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

Darren McDonald

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2008

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.

I'm not there

Christopher Chapman looks at some contemporary portraits that explore the construction of identity.

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.

Very fine and very like

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2011

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?

How to be a boy

Christopher Chapman profiles Chris Lilley, actor and creator of Angry Boys.

Capturing the Mouse

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

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.

Peripheral vision

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2020

Aimee Board chats to emerging photographer Charles Dennington.

Top shot that

Magazine article by Gideon Haigh, 2009

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

Donated duo

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

Davida Allen

Magazine article by Sandra Bruce, 2022

Going around a gallery with a child, we point to a painting of a dog and brightly ask ‘What’s that?’ If they don’t say ‘A dog’, we tell them that’s what it is. We don’t say it’s a shape inscribed by an artist that’s popularly understood to signify a dog. That’d only serve to foster a smarty-pants.

Unboxed

Sandra Bruce explores a new acquisition that has within it a story of interconnectivities in the Australian art world.

People are people

Magazine article by Sandra Bruce, 2022

Sandra Bruce chats with seven-time NPPP finalist Chris Budgeon about photography, guitars and representing the human story.

Talking heads

In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

8 March 2018

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

Duty bound

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

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

Waterloo and Mrs. Moore

Magazine article by Giles Auty, 2002

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.

The man behind the art

Giles Auty introduces British painter John Wonnacott who will talk at the National Portrait Gallery on 2 November 2002.

Uncommon Australians

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

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

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

Magazine article by Alexandra Roginski, 2015

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.

Getting a head

Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.

On active service

Magazine article by Sam Bowker, 2007

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

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.

Australian visit in Denmark

Magazine article by Mette Skougaard, 2006

In April 2006 the National Portrait Gallery showcased Australian portraits at the Fredenksborg Castle in Denmark.

Caroline Amelia Elizabeth
of Brunswick, 1804

Around the grounds

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2010

Anne Sanders writes about the exhibitions Victoria & Albert: Art & Love on display at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and the retrospective of Sir Thomas Lawrence at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Dupain detective

Magazine article by Johanna McMahon, 2019

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

Anne-Louise Lambert as Miranda Courtesy Picnic Productions

Rock star

Magazine article by Jennifer Coombes, 2018

Jennifer Coombes explores the lush images of Picnic at Hanging Rock, featuring Anne-Louise Lambert’s Miranda, the face of the film.

The National Portrait Gallery's 20th birthday party

The National Portrait Gallery's 20th Anniversary

Last month we marked the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery, the tenth of the opening of our signature building, and the fifth of our having become a statutory authority under Commonwealth legislation.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018 winner announced

23 March 2018

Magazine article by Stephen Dupont, 2008

Finalists have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of the Winner and Highly Commended for the National Photographic Portrait Prize since December. It is our pleasure to announce the Winner for 2018 is Lee Grant for her portrait titled Charlie and Highly Commended has been awarded to Filomena Rizzo for her portrait titled My Olivia.

Axe Me Biggie

Australian photojournalist Stephen Dupont's Afghanistan project captures the human experience of a country in reconstruction.

Small worlds

Magazine article by Rebecca Ray, 2022

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

Yanyangkari Roma Butler and Yangi Yangi Fox from Irrunyju (Wingellina), Western Australia, 2017 Rhett Hammerton

Weaving identity

Rebecca Ray explores the way identity, belonging and connectedness are translated through materiality in First Nations portraiture.

Figurative foundation

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

Tan Le, 2018

by John Tsiavis

Magazine article by Jane Kinsman, 2013

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

A nose by any other name

In the exhibition William Kentridge: Drawn from Africa at the National Gallery of Australia, the artist marries Gogol's Tsarist Russia, with that of Stalin and the damaging history of his homeland, South Africa.

The Writer: Peter Goldsworthy, 2018

by Deidre But-Husaim

Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AO and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018.

Handing on the baton

Magazine article by Yvonne Audette AM, 2005

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

Meeting by Murder

The story behind two colonial portraits; a lithograph of captain and convict John Knatchbull and newspaper illustration of Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke.

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, 2010

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.

Their brilliant careers

Magazine article by Jenny Gall, 2017

Jenny Gall delves into Starstruck to celebrate some of Australian cinema’s iconic women.

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.

Mal Meninga, 2018

by Peter Hudson

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2016

Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018

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

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

History

About us

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

Part of the crew of His Majesty's Ship Guardian endeavouring to escape in the boats

South-bound and down

Joanna Gilmour recounts the story of ill-fated sea voyages in the early stages of the Antipodean colony.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2024

The Illustrated London News after Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant

Let’s take a look at the National Photographic Portrait Prize for 2024!

Queen Victoria, 1901

Portrait, photogravure on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Hot Scots

Magazine article by Christopher Baker, 2013

James Holloway describes the first portraits you encounter when entering the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Snap chat

Magazine article by Anne O'Hehir, 2019

2019 National Photographic Portrait Prize judge Anne O’Hehir looks beneath the surface of this year’s entries.

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

Birds of a feather

Magazine article by Annette Twyman, 2021

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

Artists at home

Magazine article by Karina Dias Pires, 2023

Karina Dias Pires shares the stories behind her portraits of women artists in their creative spaces.

Blue Collar Icon

Dr Sarah Engledow delves into the life of union leader Pat Mackie who is depicted in a portrait by Nancy Borlase AM.

Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

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

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

Petal to the mettle

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

Illuminating history

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2023

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

Portrait of Thea Proctor, 1905 by George Lambert

The real Thea

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2022

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

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

Take thy face hence

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

HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, 2006 Ralph Heimans AM

Dane reign

Magazine article by Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby, 2018

Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby bring eloquent context to Ralph Heimans’ portraits of Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

Jumpstart

Magazine article by Helena Bezzina, 2009

Jessica Herrington won the inaugural National Youth Self Portrait Prize in 2008 with a work about the difficulty we have revealing ourselves in front of the camera.

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 painter and the princess

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2016

Michael Desmond interviews Ralph Heimans about his portrait of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.

The hands have it

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.

Women make history

Magazine article by Jennifer Higgie, 2022

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

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.

Beyond the bow tie

Nathan Faiman delves into the rich life story and legacy of Alan Goldberg.

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

Regarding Henrys

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2010

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

Doodles of the Diva

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.

Facing the inferno

Tara James speaks to Cam Neville about his portrait series, Firefighters.

Through blue eyes

Magazine article by Kylie Scroope, 2011

Works by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan bring the desert, the misty seashore and the hot Monaro plains to exhibition Open Air: Portraits in the landscape.

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

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

Andrew Sayers AM FAHA

13 October 2015

Archived media releases 2015

The Chairman, Board, Director and staff mourn the loss of the National Portrait Gallery's inaugural director.

Beau Dean Riley Smith, Wiradjuri and Gamilaraay nations, Bennelong, 2017

Space in between

Magazine article by Rebecca Ray, 2022

Rebecca Ray goes backstage with Bangarra’s Head of Design and photographer Jacob Nash.

Pre-Raphaelite Profile

Magazine article by Natalie Wilson, 2023

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

A potpourri of portraits

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

Rethinking foundational histories

Magazine article by Kate Fullagar, 2019

A focus on Indigenous-European relationships underpins Facing New Worlds. By Kate Fullagar.

Friends and Acquaintances

Archived media releases 2023

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

The 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize

16 June 2023

Shea Kirk’s portrait of friend and fellow-artist Emma Armstrong-Porter has won the 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Trevor Jamieson, 2016 by Brett Canet-Gibson

The more things change...

NPPP 2017 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2009

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

In the round

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

Australian Princess

Magazine article by Katherine Russell, 2005

The full-length portrait of HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark by artist Jiawei Shen, has become a destination piece for visitors.

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.

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

The Window Seat, 1907 by Frances Hodgkins

Kiwi magpie

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2018

Penelope Grist finds inspiration in pioneering New Zealand artist, Frances Hodgkins.

My Favourite Australian

Magazine article by Christine Clark, 2009

The Australian public was invited in 2008 to vote for their favourite Australian. After the votes were tallied an exhibition of the top-ten Popular Australians and the top-twenty unsung heroes was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery.

Royal Solomon Islands Police Force recruits, Maranatha Hall, Honiara by Sean Davey

The art of peace

Magazine article by Sven Knudsen, 2018

Sean Davey captures the portrait of a nation renewed.

Off grid

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2019

Aimee Board ventures within and beyond to consider two remarkable new Gallery acquisitions.

Selfhood transcended

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders and Dr Christopher Chapman, 2018

Anne Sanders and Christopher Chapman bring passionate characterisation to Express Yourself, the Portrait Gallery collection exhibition celebrating iconoclastic Australians.

William Charles Wentworth -The Australian Patriot

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2015

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

Our Disability Action Plan

Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2023–25

We need to ensure that our attitudes are inclusive, our environments accessible, our workforces diverse and our processes user friendly so that everyone can benefit.

The personal and the historical

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2017

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.

Conduct becoming

Penelope Grist speaks to Bill Henson and Simone Young to discover the origins of the artist’s stunning photographic triptych.

The considered life

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2010

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

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

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

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

Director John Duigan and actor Judy Davis on the set of ‘Winter of our Dreams’, Sydney, 1981 by Robert McFarlane

Natural born stiller

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Penelope Grist speaks to Robert McFarlane about shooting for the stars.

Cormac + Callum Kenne, My Children, Sydney, Australia, 2009

Citizen Kenne

Magazine article by April Thompson, 2013

April Thompson explores an exhibition of Ingvar Kenne’s global portrait project.

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.

Daniel Johns, Silverchair Melbourne 2007 by Martin Philbey

Rock art

Magazine article by Andrew Mayo, 2016

Andrew Mayo talks to three of Australia’s most prominent and prolific music photographers — Martin Philbey, Kane Hibberd and Daniel Boud — about the challenges and inspiration behind their craft.

A real Pratt

The death of a gentlewoman is shrouded in mystery, a well-liked governor finds love after sorrow, and two upright men become entangled in the historical record.

Giving and getting

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2007

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.

Painting writing

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

Fits of delicacy and despair

Magazine article by Diana O'Neil, 2017

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

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.

Revd Dr Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, c.1795 by Sir Henry Raeburn

Great Scots

Diana O’Neil samples the tartan treats on offer in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

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

The last word

Magazine article by Dr David Hansen, 2022

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

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.

M H Wednesday 11.15am from the series Self-harm, 2004

Big it up

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2005

Former National Portrait Gallery Curator Magda Keaney was a member of the selection panel of the Schwepes Photographic Portrait Prize 2004 at the National Portrait Gallery London.

The silent partner

Magazine article by Leonie Hellmers, 2004

One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.

Life class

Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.

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.

Judicial portraits

Magazine article by Leslie Moran, 2007

Leslie Moran investigates the portraits of judges in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

Kylie

Magazine article by Margot Anderson, 2005

The Kylie exhibition celebrated the significant achievements of one of Australia's most internationally recognisable faces and gave the general public a rare glimpse into her glamorous life.

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.

Anangu landscape learning

Magazine article by Michael Wardell, 2016

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

ORA - Homesickness Project 2015 by Chrys Zantis

Food for thought

Michael Wardell on Chrys Zantis’ Ora.

Untitled, Conductors, Tramways series, 1990 © Matt Nettheim

Back track

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

Thousand mile stare

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2015

John Elliott talks about his photographic portrait practice, including his iconic image of Slim Dusty arm-in-arm with Dame Edna Everage.

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

Getting bare

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

Bloodlines

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2004

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

dumb & dumber from The Imponderable Archive, 2013 Samuel Hodge

Everything, everyqueer, all at once

Magazine article by Bradley Vincent, 2022

Bradley Vincent considers Samuel Hodge’s use of the archive to create a queer vernacular of portraiture.

First-Class Marksman, 1946 by Sidney Nolan

Money for Myth

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2015

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

Storied portrait

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

Cultural kaleidoscope

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2019

The complex connections between four creative Australians; Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Robert Helpmann and Peter Sculthorpe.

Expect the unexpected

Joanna Gilmour revels in accidental artist Charles Rodius’ nineteenth century renderings of Indigenous peoples.

Vintage Max

Magazine article by Gael Newton, 2003

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

Reflections

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

All that fall: Sacrifice, life and loss in the First World War exhibition co-curators Dr Anne Sanders and Dr Christopher Chapman reflect on the evolution of the Gallery’s Anzac Centenary exhibition.

More cash than dash

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

The long game

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2020

Penelope Grist spends some quality time with the Portrait Gallery’s summer collection exhibition, Eye to Eye.

Indexing, the art of

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

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

Portraiture in a Bleak House

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

Magazine article by Alexandra Roginski, 2019

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

Sibly irresistible

Alexandra Roginski reveals a forceful feminist figure in the colonial period’s slippery science, phrenology.

Brooke Lockett, Heidi Martin, Karen Nanasca, Halaina Hills; New York, 2012 Lisa Tomasetti

Dance like everyone’s watching

Penelope Grist’s spirits soar with Lisa Tomasetti’s Dancers in the Streets series.

Pushpamala N

by Ajay Sinha

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2022

Pushpamala N. was born in 1956 in Bangalore. Her early training was in sculpture, but as her practice progressed she brought an early enthusiasm for narrative figuration into her photographic work.

Skyhooks (Red Symons, Bob Starkie, Shirley Strachan, Greg Macainsh, Freddie Strauks) in Parker’s studio, Fitzroy, 1975 David Parker

Cool cool world

Penelope Grist unpacks photographs by David Parker, who captured the phenomenal emergence of the 1970s and 80s Melbourne music scene.

Be bold

Magazine article by Katherine Russell, 2007

The name of Florence Broadhurst, one of Australia’s most significant wallpaper and textile designers, is now firmly cemented in the canon of Australian art and design.

"Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?", 1956

Pop goes the preconception

Magazine article by Paul Moorhouse, 2007

A National Portrait Gallery, London exhibition redefines portraiture, shifting the focus towards a new perspective on Pop Art.

Anna Culliton

NPPP 2007 exhibition essay

Anna Culliton never had a colouring-in book when she was little. Her parents –Tony, a filmmaker, and Stephanie, a painter – wouldn’t let her have one. Instead, they insisted on her drawing her own pictures to colour-in.

Seduce, Amuse, Entertain

Magazine article by Sandra Phillips, 2020

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

Vincent Brady leading anti Bicentenary Protest, Brisbane, 1987 Michael Aird

Activating the space

Sandra Phillips on portraits of Indigenous activism from Cairns Art Gallery’s 2019 Queen’s Land Blak Portraiture exhibition.

Seduce Amuse Entertain

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2007

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

Themes and variations (Annelies) A13, 1946

Listening to form

Magazine article by Jane Kinsman, 2007

National Gallery of Australia curator Jane Kinsman discusses the portraiture of Henri Matisse.

Seeing stars

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

Mugshots

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2018

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

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

The more things change

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2011

National Photographic Portrait Prize curator, Sarah Engledow, finds reward in a difficult task and ultimately uncovers the essence of portraiture.

Poison pen

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

Mary, Queen of Scots by unknown artist, National Portrait Gallery of London

Portrait dendrochronology

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2010

Angus's latest Trumbology is accompanied by the following caveat: 'This one is reeeeeeally geeky.'

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 Joanna Gilmour, 2011

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

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.

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, 2019

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.

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.

Black tie or wombat: How formal should I go?

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2008

Michael Desmond discusses the portrait of Senator Neville Bonner by Robert Campbell Jnr.

The look and the feel

Living Memory exhibition essay

Magazine article by Andrew Mayo, 2017

Editor Stephen Phillips looks at the finalists' photographs through a judge's lens.

Something old, something new

Andrew Mayo considers the changing face of modern wedding photography through the eyes of two of its finest exponents, Dan O’Day and Kelly Tunney.

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.

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

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

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

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.

Portrait of the Gallery

Magazine article by Graeme Dix, 2016

A design diary retrospective.

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.

Pop poet

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2013

Dr Anne Sanders previews the works in the new focus exhibition Paul Kelly and The Portraits.

Good, bad and the ugly

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2007

Michael Desmond explores what makes a portrait subject significant.

Twin chics

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2021

Joanna Gilmour on the exuberant union of fashion pioneers Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson, captured in luminescent splendour by artist Carla Fletcher.

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.

The Cutmear sisters, Jane and Lucy, c. 1842

A man of superior attainments

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of a colonial portrait artist, writer and rogue Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

No Laughing Matter

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

Forum participants

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2013

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

All dressed up

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 Anne O'Hehir, 2023

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

Stand Proud

Anne O’Hehir chats with artist Kim Leutwyler about courage, community and the ethics of looking.

Nan and Brian in bed, New York City 1983 © Nan Goldin

Love scars

Magazine article by Katrina Osborne, 2016

Katrina Osborne immerses herself in one of photography’s most fearless chronicles.

Christmas Island

Magazine article by April Phillips, 2024

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.

Ryan Presley

In conversation

April Phillips (Wiradjuri-Scottish, kalari/galari) yarns with Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley about portraiture, resilience and the spirit held within fire.

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

Wunderkind lost

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2021

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

Eating the seasons

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2019

Anne Sanders imbibes Tony Bilson’s gastronomic revolution.

Material culture

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2018

The Rajah Quilt’s narrative promptings are as intriguing as the textile is intricate.

In and out of focus

Magazine article by Gael Newton, 2017

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

Of ice and men

Magazine article by Stephen Phillips, 2016

Frank Hurley's celebrated images document the heroism and minutiae of Australian exploration in Antarctica.

Shop Talk

Angus and the arbiters talk (photo) shop for the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

The portrait writ large

Magazine article by Karen Vickery, 2015

Karen Vickery on Chang the Chinese giant in Australia.

Human encounters

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2023

Joanna Gilmour takes us behind the scenes of some of Ralph Heimans’ best-known portraits of royalty, heads of state and cultural icons.

Mexico from the Palace painted by ‘Maximilian Emperor'

Empirical art

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2022

Several years ago I came across this curious painting on the racks in a distant, dusty corner of the store room in the basement of the Johannesburg Art Gallery in South Africa. Since then the mystery surrounding it has never been far from my mind.

Yanyuwa young men, The Song Peoples Sessions CD Launch Rehearsals, Yanyuwa Country, 2012 Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis

Us being ourselves

Penelope Grist talks to photographer Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis about capturing moments, telling stories and keeping Culture strong.

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.

Australia’s great internationalists

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Penelope Grist explores the United Nations stories in the Gallery’s collection.

Heartfelt

Magazine article by Sandra Bruce, 2021

The portrait of Janet and Horace Keats with the spirit of the poet Christopher Brennan is brought to life by artist Dora Toovey.

Splendid, many-splendoured

Sandra Bruce gazes on love and the portrait through Australian Love Stories’ multi-faceted prism.

Judy Davis and Sam Neill in ‘My Brilliant Career’, 1979 David Kynoch

Moving still

Magazine article by Anne O'Hehir, 2022

Anne O’Hehir on the seductive power of the film still to reflect and shape ourselves and our cultural landscape.

Drawing inspiration

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2017

Christopher Chapman absorbs the gentle touch of Don Bachardy’s portraiture.

See through me

Magazine article by Penelope Grist and Rebecca Ray, 2022

Penelope Grist and Rebecca Ray talk to the artists in Portrait23: Identity about transcending modes of portraiture.

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.

Less than six degrees of separation

Lecture, 28 May 2011

Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.

Robyn Sweaney

NPPP 2014 exhibition essay

Robyn's parents had two terriers, Wuff and Snuff. In spite of Snuff’s ominous name and a couple of close shaves – once, he jumped out of a moving car, and another time, on a long road trip, he was accidentally left behind at a petrol station – he outlived Wuff.

The Art Lovers - Megan, 2013 by Gary Grealy

Everybody, look serious

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

Staying home

True south #2

Joanna Gilmour brings a mindful Douglas Mawson’s perspective to bear on the concept of isolation.

Home truths

Despite once expressing a limited interest in the self portrait, the idea of it has figured strongly in much of Tracey Moffatt's work and has done so in some of her most distinctive and compelling images.

Naked ambition

Joanna Gilmour dives into the life of Australian swimming legend Annette Kellerman.

My father-in-law watering his garden, 1986 by Davida Allen

Lovingly observed

Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.

Earth to earth

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2018

Dr Sarah Engledow discusses the recent gift of works by David Campbell.

Flesh, figure and rock

Aimee Board traces Judy Cassab’s path to the Australian outback, arriving at the junction of inspiration and abstraction.

Big bouquet of Blackmans

Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.

Eileen Dunne in The Hospital for Sick Children, 1940

The incomparable Beaton

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

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

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

Out of the shadows

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2013

Joanna Gilmour profiles the life and times of the shutter sisters May and Mina Moore.

What price self?

Jane Raffan investigates auction sales of self portraits nationally and internationally.

The Dissecting Room

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture.

The art of multiplicity

Magazine article by Meredith Hughes, 2019

Meredith Hughes explores a key Portrait Gallery work, emerging into the infinite iterations of identity.

Fiona McMonagle

Fiona aims to create a dangerous situation with a flood of water on the paper, forcing each work to the point where it can fail, and then rescuing it.

Asiel Timor Dei, ca. 1728 by a master of Calamarca

The Viceroyalty of New Spain

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

European painters always enjoyed a good deal of latitude in the representation of angels, those asexual, bodiless, celestial regiments of God, so long as they were young and beautiful.

Flash mob

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.

Noel McKenna

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2015

It’s a matter beyond dispute that in the entire history of Australian art, it’s Noel McKenna who’s painted the liveliest rendition of the head of a Chihuahua.

The Long Awaited, 2008 by Patricia Piccinini

In the flesh

An exhibition of humanness in ten themes by Penelope Grist.

Inner Worlds and psychoanalysis

Lecture, 4 June 2011

Inner Worlds evokes a broad view of psychology as a discipline. However, the specific interests of the practitioners whose portraits are included in the exhibition incorporate specialist areas including psychoanalysis.

Listomania

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2019

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.

Little women

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.

Nannultera, a young cricketer of the Natives' Training Institution, Poonindie , 1854 John Michael Crossland

The catechist and the cricketer

Magazine article by Stephen Valambras Graham, 2021

Stephen Valambras Graham traverses the intriguing socio-political terrain behind two iconic First Nations portraits of the 1850s.

A sketch for some portraits

Magazine article by Judith Pugh, 2005

Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.

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

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.

The shipwright's arms

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2022

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of convict-turned-artist William Buelow Gould.

You are who?

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

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.

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.

The art of Inner Worlds

Lecture, 7 May 2011

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

Rick Amor: 21 Portraits