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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

Search / grace cossington smith

People

Grace Cossington Smith OBE

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

Joshua Smith

Biography

Joshua Smith studied sculpture with Rayner Hoff and took classes in drawing and painting at Julian Ashton's Sydney Art School.

6 portraits in the collection

Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG

Biography

Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG (b. 1978), former Australian Army soldier, is the recipient of the Medal for Gallantry in 2006, the Victoria Cross in 2011 and the Commendation for Distinguished Service in 2013.In 2017, Roberts-Smith’s military service came under scrutiny as a result of an inquiry – commonly known as the Brereton Report – into questions of unlawful conduct on the part of Australian military personnel in Afghanistan.

1 portrait in the collection

Dick Smith

Biography

Dick Smith (b. 1944), businessman, aviator, film-maker and explorer, developed interests in radio and the bush as a boy.

2 portraits in the collection

The painter transmogrified and Mrs Smith

Eric Smith

Biography

Eric Smith (1919-2017), painter, was born in Brunswick, Melbourne, and trained in commercial art at the Brunswick Technical College before serving in the army during World War 2.

6 portraits in the collection

Julian Smith

Biography

Julian Smith, surgeon and photographer, came to Australia with his family from England at the age of three.

2 portraits in the collection

Tommy Smith

Biography

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

2 portraits in the collection

David Smith

Biography

David Smith, painter, draughtsman, printmaker and teacher, was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, where he attended the Technical School and the Lowestoft and Norwich Schools of Art.

1 portrait in the collection

Bernard Smith

Biography

Bernard Smith (1916-2011) was one of Australia's most important twentieth-century art historians and an influential cultural commentator.

2 portraits in the collection

Sydney Ure Smith

Biography

Sydney Ure Smith, publisher, was responsible for the establishment of Art in Australia in 1916-1942 and the journals The Home and Australian National Journal.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Gerard Smith

Biography

Sir Gerard Smith (1839-1920), governor, was educated at Eton before purchasing a commission as an ensign and lieutenant in the Scots Fusilier Regiment of Foot Guards, with whom he served in Canada in 1863-1864.

1 portrait in the collection

Robin Smith

Biography

Robin Smith (1927-2024) grew up in rural New Zealand, and studied arts and fine arts at Canterbury University before beginning to write and illustrate adventure and natural history stories.

1 portrait in the collection

Heide Smith

Biography

Heide Smith took up photography as a young girl in Germany in 1948, when her uncle gave her a Zeiss Ikon camera.

3 portraits in the collection

Beau D. Smith

Biography

Beau Dean Riley Smith is a Wiradjuri and Gamillaraay man, born in Dubbo.

1 portrait in the collection

Shirley Smith AO MBE

Biography

Shirley 'Mum Shirl' Smith AO OBE (1921–1998), humanitarian, was a Wiradjuri woman.

1 portrait in the collection

The New Arrivals at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art

Peter Purves Smith

Biography

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

2 portraits in the collection

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Captain Charles Ulm

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith MC AFC

Biography

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith MC AFC (1897- last seen 1935) and Captain Charles Ulm (1898-last seen 1934) together founded Australian National Airlines.

3 portraits in the collection

John Firth Smith

Biography

John Firth-Smith (b. 1943) is a Sydney abstract painter. In the early 1960s he won a number of 'young artist' prizes for his paintings of yachts on Sydney Harbour, but by 1968 his work was becoming increasingly abstract, featuring large fields of opaque colour.

2 portraits in the collection

Stephen Murray-Smith

Biography

Stephen Murray-Smith (1922-1988), writer and editor, was educated at Geelong Grammar and the University of Melbourne before serving in New Guinea during World War 2.

1 portrait in the collection

John Raphael Smith

Biography

John Raphael Smith worked in various drapery establishments and painted miniatures before turning to engraving in London.

1 portrait in the collection

Harry Hudson

Biography

Harry Hudson (1907-1974) was a Melbourne-based painter. His work was included in a number of group exhibitions at the Bridget McDonnell Gallery, Carlton in the 1980s along with those of such notable artists as Roland Wakelin, Grace Cossington-Smith and James Gleeson.

1 portrait in the collection

Ethel Anderson

Biography

Ethel Anderson (née Mason, 1883-1958), writer and artist, was an important figure in the Sydney modern art scene of the 1920s and 30s.

2 portraits in the collection

Stella Bowen

Biography

Stella Bowen, painter and writer, grew up in Adelaide, where she studied with Margaret Preston.

1 portrait in the collection

Roy de Maistre CBE

Biography

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

Anthony Dattilo Rubbo

Biography

Anthony Dattilo Rubbo (1870-1955) was born in Naples and received classical art training in Italy.

1 portrait in the collection

Drusilla Modjeska

Biography

Drusilla Modjeska (b. 1946), writer, feminist and academic, was born in England and moved to Australia in 1971 after several years in Papua New Guinea.

1 portrait in the collection

George Lambert

Biography

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

Frank McIlwraith

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

Jean Appleton

Biography

Jean Appleton (1911–2003), painter and art teacher, studied at the East Sydney Technical College, completing a diploma in drawing and illustration in 1932.

5 portraits in the collection

Ruskin

Biography

Ruskin was a Sydney photographic business, located at 159 O'Sullivans Road, Rose Bay.

1 portrait in the collection

George Case

Biography

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

Lady Maisie Drysdale

Biography

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

Francis Lymburner

Biography

Francis Lymburner (1916-1972) was a Queensland-born artist who was educated at Brisbane Grammar and took art classes at Brisbane Technical College.

2 portraits in the collection

Peter Nicholson

Biography

Peter Nicholson (b. 1950), poet and author, grew up in Sydney. He published his first volume of poetry and narrative, A Temporary Grace, in 1991.

3 portraits in the collection

George Moore

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

Les Darcy

Biography

Les Darcy (1895-1917), boxer, was one of Australia's earliest sporting heroes.

3 portraits in the collection

George Finey

Biography

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

Alec Murray

Biography

Alec Murray was a photographer whose Alec Murray's Album: Personalities of Australia was published by Sydney Ure Smith in about 1948.

1 portrait in the collection

John Chapman

Biography

Little is known of John Chapman, who engraved fine allegorical subjects after the designs of J Smith and Richard Corbould and worked closely with Thomas Macklin on his Shakespeare series.

2 portraits in the collection

Cyril Henschke

Biography

Cyril Henschke (1924-1979), winemaker, was a member of a well-established Barossa winemaking family.

1 portrait in the collection

Gwendolene Pratt

Biography

Gwen Pratt FRAS (b.1917) is a traditional painter and portraitist in oil, watercolour and pastel.

1 portrait in the collection

Professor Manning Clark AC

Biography

Manning Clark AC (1915–1991), historian, lectured at the University of Melbourne from 1944 to 1949, when became Foundation Professor of History at Canberra University College.

4 portraits in the collection

Sir William Dobell OBE

Biography

Sir William Dobell (1899–1970), painter, studied art and was apprentice to an architect in Sydney before leaving Australia for Europe in 1929.

10 portraits in the collection

Professor Kelvin Kong AM

Biography

Kelvin Kong AM is a Worimi doctor who grew up in Port Stephens, New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

Enid Fleming

Biography

Enid Fleming was a pupil of Rayner Hoff's at the East Sydney Technical College at the time these works were made (Hoff and several of his other students were working on the Anzac Memorial at the time).

2 portraits in the collection

Marion Halligan

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

Alex Dimitriades

Biography

Alex Dimitriades (b. 1973), actor, grew up in Earlwood, Sydney, the son of first-generation Greek immigrants.

1 portrait in the collection

Danelle Bergstrom

Biography

Danelle Bergstrom (b. 1957) was born in Sydney. She studied art and art education at the Julian Ashton school (1974-1979) and at Alexander Mackie CAE.

2 portraits in the collection

Marilyn Kong

Biography

Marilyn Kong is a Worimi doctor who grew up in Port Stephens, New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

Marlene Kong

Biography

Marlene Kong is a Worimi doctor who grew up in Port Stephens, New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

Bruce Dawe

Biography

Bruce Dawe AO (1930-2020), poet and teacher, was born in Fitzroy and worked as a labourer, clerk, sawmill hand, farmhand and postman before joining the RAAF in 1959.

1 portrait in the collection

Joy Hester

Biography

Joy Hester (1920-1960) was the only female member of the Angry Penguin movement, which included artists Tucker, Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd.

1 portrait in the collection

Paul Haefliger

Biography

Paul Haefliger (1914-1982) trained in Sydney and then in London with Bernard Meninsky and Mark Gertler.

1 portrait in the collection

Charles Ulm

Biography

Charles Ulm (1898-1934) began work as a clerk in a stockbroking office after he left school, but enlisted under a false identity in the 1st Battalion of the AIF just before his 16th birthday.

2 portraits in the collection

Roland Wakelin

Biography

Roland Wakelin was born in New Zealand and studied at the RAS school in Sydney under Dattilo Rubbo from 1912 to 1914.

1 portrait in the collection

Robert Drewe

Biography

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

Sister Mary Brady

Biography

Sister Mary Brady OP (1922-2014), born in Tamworth, is a self-taught painter, though she did receive critiques from Joshua Smith and Norman Carter.

1 portrait in the collection

Theresa Byrnes

Biography

Theresa Byrnes (b. 1969) is a painter, writer and performance artist who first exhibited her paintings in 1986 at the age of sixteen.

1 portrait in the collection

William Pidgeon

Biography

William Edwin 'Wep' Pidgeon, cartoonist, illustrator and painter was born in Paddington and studied art at the JS Watkins School and East Sydney Technical College.

2 portraits in the collection

James Horan

Biography

Irish-born James Horan (b. 1976) is an editorial and advertising photographer whose many clients include banks, hotel chains, medical supply companies, museums and charities such as The Salvos and The Smith Family.

1 portrait in the collection

Gary Catalano

Biography

Gary Catalano (1947-2002), poet and critic, was educated at Sydney’s Trinity Grammar and worked in a variety of jobs before a series of Australia Council grants in the late 1970s enabled him to devote himself full-time to writing.

3 portraits in the collection

Hera Roberts

Biography

Hera Roberts (1892-1969) was a painter, illustrator, designer, commercial artist and milliner.

1 portrait in the collection

Samuel Wood

Biography

Samuel 'Sammy' Woods (1867-1931), cricketer, is one of only five men to have played Tests for both Australia and England.

1 portrait in the collection

Adrian Feint

Biography

Adrian Feint (1894-1971) studied at the Sydney Art School with Julian Ashton after having served in the AIF in France and Belgium in World War I, during which he was praised for gallantry.

1 portrait in the collection

Arthur Horner

Biography

Arthur Horner was born in Malvern, Victoria, and attended Sydney High School and the National Art School.

1 portrait in the collection

Garry Shead

Biography

Born in Sydney, Garry Shead studied at the National Art School in 1961-2.

4 portraits in the collection

H B. Hall

Biography

Henry Bryan Hall grew up in England and began his trade as an apprentice to the engravers Benjamin Smith and Henry Meyer.

1 portrait in the collection

Colin Wills

Biography

Colin Wills (1906–1965), journalist and author, was born in Toowoomba, Queensland and grew up in Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Colin Syme AK

Biography

Sir Colin Syme AK (1903-1986) was chairman of BHP from 1952 to1971. Born in Perth, he attended Scotch College in Claremont, the universities of Perth and Melbourne and the University of New South Wales before becoming a solicitor in the Melbourne firm of Hedderwick, Fookes and Alston in 1923.

1 portrait in the collection

Russell Drysdale

Biography

Sir Russell Drysdale AC (1912-1981), painter, developed eye trouble in 1929, and had to leave boarding school for the first of many eye treatments which left him fearful of total blindness.

6 portraits in the collection

Mervyn Horton

Biography

Mervyn Horton AM (1917-1983), editor, art writer and entrepreneur, founded the journal Art and Australia in 1963 and edited it until his death in 1983.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Purves

Biography

Thomas Purves (1909-1969), known as Tam, founded the Australian Galleries in Smith Street, Collingwood, Melbourne with his wife Anne in 1956.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Biography

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), acknowledged as one of the world's great portraitists, was master of portraits in the 'Grand Manner', replete with moral and heroic symbolism.

3 portraits in the collection

Geoffrey Dutton AO

Biography

Geoffrey Dutton AO (1922–1998) was a prodigious writer and editor whose published works comprise poetry, novels, children's books, biographies, art history and literary criticism.

1 portrait in the collection

Roderick Shaw

Biography

Roderick Shaw (1915-1992) is perhaps best known for his worker paintings of the social realist school, such as Cable Layers (in the Art Gallery of NSW).

2 portraits in the collection

Gai Waterhouse AO

Biography

Gai Waterhouse AO, thoroughbred racehorse trainer, is the daughter of legendary trainer Tommy Smith.

1 portrait in the collection

William H. Bardwell

Biography

William H. Bardwell, photographer, worked at various premises in Ballarat from 1858 until 1895.

1 portrait in the collection

Peter Skrzynecki OAM

Biography

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

Sigrid Thornton AO

Biography

Sigrid Thornton AO (b. 1959), actor, has been a household name since her performance in the box-office hit The Man from Snowy River in 1981.

1 portrait in the collection

Steve Irwin

Biography

Steve Irwin (1962-2006) achieved international fame as the 'Crocodile Hunter'.

1 portrait in the collection

Robert Adamson

Biography

Robert Adamson (1943–2022), poet and publisher, divided his childhood between Neutral Bay and the Hawkesbury River, where his grandfather lived.

2 portraits in the collection

Brian Fitzpatrick

Biography

Brian Fitzpatrick (1905-1965) was educated at state schools in regional Victoria and Melbourne before gaining his BA from Melbourne University in 1925.

1 portrait in the collection

Judith Wright

Biography

Judith Wright (1915–2000), poet, conservationist and Aboriginal land rights campaigner, was born at Thalgaroch Station, near Armidale, NSW, into a pastoralist family whose origins go back to the first settlement in the Hunter Valley in the 1820s.

3 portraits in the collection

Frank Hinder

Biography

Francis Henry Critchley Hinder (1906-1992) was a pioneer of abstract art in Australia.

18 portraits in the collection

Charles Haddon Chambers

Biography

Charles Haddon Chambers (1860-1921), playwright and dramatist, grew up in Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Rodney Hall OAM

Biography

Rodney Hall OAM (b. 1935), writer, came to Australia in 1947 and settled in Brisbane.

2 portraits in the collection

Justin O'Brien

Biography

Justin O'Brien (1917-1996) was one of the major Australian artists of his generation.

3 portraits in the collection

Sir Charles Lloyd Jones

Biography

Sir Charles Lloyd Jones (1878-1958), merchant and arts patron, grew up in Sydney, where he studied at Julian Ashton's art school in 1895.

1 portrait in the collection

Hugo Weaving AO

Biography

Hugo Weaving AO (b. 1960), actor, spent his childhood in England, Australia and South Africa before returning to live in Australia in 1976.

1 portrait in the collection

'Come + see the real thing, come + see' Conquistadors parts Hong. Ranger 3: Preparatory study for 'Nothing's as precious as a hole in the ground'

Peter Garrett AM

Biography

Peter Garrett AM (b. 1953), musician, environmental and social activist, and former politician, is the lead singer of the band Midnight Oil, which originated in Sydney's northern beaches in the mid-1970s.

12 portraits in the collection

Sir Rupert Hamer AC KCMG ED

Biography

Sir Rupert ‘Dick’ Hamer AC KCMG (1916-2004) was premier of Victoria from 1972 to 1981.

1 portrait in the collection

Karen Quinlan AM

Biography

Karen Quinlan AM took up her appointment as Director of the National Portrait Gallery in December 2018. Karen commenced her curatorial career in 1994 at National Gallery of Victoria before becoming Curator of Bendigo Art Gallery in 1996, and the Director of Bendigo Art Gallery from 2000 until 2018. Karen was a Professor of Practice and previously Director of the La Trobe Art Institute La Trobe University, a former Trustee of the State Library of Victoria, Board Member and former Chair of the Public Galleries Association of Victoria.

First Australian first-class cricket team

Biography

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

Sir Robert Gibson

Biography

Sir Robert Gibson GBE (1863-1934) trained in design and drafting in Glasgow, where he began work as a designer at an iron company; he soon became manager of its London office.

1 portrait in the collection

Margel Hinder AM

Biography

Margel Hinder AM (née Harris) (1906-1995), sculptor, trained in Buffalo and Boston in the 1920s.

1 portrait in the collection

Jan Senbergs AM

Biography

Jan Senbergs AM (1939-2024) came to Australia from Latvia in 1950. He studied at the Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts, where he was influenced by Leonard French.

2 portraits in the collection

Vali Myers

Biography

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

Jill Ker Conway AC

Biography

Jill Ker Conway AC (1934-2018), academic, writer and company director, was born in Hillston in western New South Wales and spent her early years on her father's sheep station, Coorain, which was so isolated that she was seven years old before she saw another girl.

1 portrait in the collection

Jason Yat-sen Li

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

Frank Hurley OBE

Biography

Frank Hurley (1885-1962), photographer, first made his name on Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14.

2 portraits in the collection

Gilbert Eric Douglas

Biography

Gilbert Eric Douglas (1902–1970), pilot and air force officer, took part in Sir Douglas Mawson’s British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE), which took the form of two ocean voyages conducted over the southern summers of 1929–30 and 1930–31.

1 portrait in the collection

William Hardy Wilson

Biography

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

Nancy Menetrey

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE

Biography

Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE (1915–2009), aviatrix, decided she wanted to be a pilot when, at age eight, she saw a plane make an emergency landing on a beach near her home.

2 portraits in the collection

Sir Frank Packer

Biography

Sir Douglas Frank Hewson Packer KBE (1906-1974), media proprietor, grew up in Sydney and became a cadet journalist on the Daily Guardian, owned by his father RC Packer, in 1923.

2 portraits in the collection

Lady Primrose Potter AC

Biography

Lady Primrose Potter AC was born in Sydney in 1931 and lives in Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

R. M. Williams AO CMG

Biography

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

Thomas Wentworth Wills

Biography

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

2 portraits in the collection

David Unaipon

Biography

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

Percy Leason

Biography

Percy Leason, artist, illustrator and cartoonist, grew up in Victoria's Wimmera region and trained in the rudiments of art in Nhill.

1 portrait in the collection

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