Search / horace wills

Portrait, 1/2 plate ambrotype with applied colour in a double elliptical brass matt inside a leather case (without lid)

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

Horace S. Wills

Emily Spencer Wills (1842–1925), Cedric Spencer Wills (1844–1914), Horace Spencer Wills (1847–1928), and Egbert Spencer Wills (1849–1931) the second, third, fourth, and fifth children of Horatio Wills and his wife Elizabeth, were all born at Lexington, spending their childhoods there and at Bellevue, the property acquired by Horatio Wills near Geelong in 1852.

1 portrait in the collection

Horace Keats

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2009

Horace Keats (1895-1945) came to Australia from his native England in 1915 as accompanist to vaudeville performer Nella Webb.

1 portrait in the collection

Mr and Mrs Horace Keats in the "Christopher Brennan Cycle", 1945

Dora Toovey

Portrait, oil on canvas

Gift of Anne and Brennan Keats 2009

Heartfelt

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

Egbert S. Wills

1 portrait in the collection

Cedric S. Wills

1 portrait in the collection

Emily S. Wills

1 portrait in the collection

Colin Wills

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

1 portrait in the collection

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

Puddled state, 2008

by David Wills

Image

William John Wills

William John Wills (1834-1861) came to Victoria with his brother in early 1853.

3 portraits in the collection

Thomas Wentworth Wills

Portrait, carte de visite photograph, hand coloured on card

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

2 portraits in the collection

Egbert Spencer Wills, c. 1870

Wilmot & Key

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

Horatio Spencer Wills, c. 1870

Wilmot & Key

Portrait, carte de visite photograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Colin Wills, c. 1940s

Max Dupain OBE

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper

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

Thomas Wentworth Wills

In their own words

Horatio Spencer Wills, c. 1855

Portrait, 1/6 plate daguerreotype with applied colour in a brass matt in leather case

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

Emily Spencer Wills, c. 1855

Portrait, 1/6 plate daguerreotype with applied colour in al brass matt (without original leather case)

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

William John Wills, c. 1861

De Gruchy & Leigh

Portrait, lithograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Tom Wills, c. 1857 (printed c. 1905-1910)

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on grey paper on card

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

Thomas Wentworth Wills, c. 1859

Portrait, 1/2 plate ambrotype with applied colour in a double elliptical brass matt in a leather case

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

The importance of being bearded

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2012

Joanna Gilmour discovers that the beards of the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills were as epic as their expedition to traverse Australia from south to north.

The Burke and Wills Monument, 1869

Thomas Foster Chuck

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

William John Wills, 2nd in command of the Victorian Expedition

William John Wills, 2nd in command of the Victorian Expedition, 1860-1861

Henry Samuel Sadd, Fergusson & Mitchell, Melbourne after Thomas Adams Hill

Portrait, mezzotint on paper

Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2007

Of Burke, Wills ... and wills

It's Complicated

Infatuation and (ill-fated) exploration

R O'Hara Burke, c. 1861

De Gruchy & Leigh

Portrait, lithograph on paper

Purchased 2009

Thomas Foster Chuck and Son

Thomas Foster Chuck (c. 1826-1898) specialised in photographing well-known colonists, many of whom featured amongst the 700 photographs in his huge mosaic The Explorers and Early Colonists of Victoria.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait 49

Winter 2015

Magazine

This issue features Jude Rae, Arthur Boyd, Darren McDonald, John Singer Sargent, Tom Wills the 'inventor' of Australian Rules Football and more.

Robert O'Hara Burke

Melbourne and Sydney Photographic Co

Robert O'Hara Burke (1821-1861), explorer, came to Australia in 1853 and joined the Victorian police force.

4 portraits in the collection

Robert O'Hara Burke, c. 1860

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Janet Keats

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on original lithograph title sheet

Janet le Brun Brown (Keats) (1900-1985), soprano, was born on her family's property, Riggsdale, near Goulburn, but on account of frailty she was sent to live with her grandparents in Inverell, Moree and Dungog before going to boarding school in the Blue Mountains and Gosford.

1 portrait in the collection

Australian Aboriginal Cricketers, 1867

Patrick Dawson

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009

Gordon Watson AM

Henry Samuel Sadd, Fergusson & Mitchell, Melbourne after Thomas Adams Hill

Gordon Watson AM (1921-1999), pianist and teacher, taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1964 to 1986 and was head of its keyboard department when he retired.

1 portrait in the collection

Robert O'Hara Burke, Leader of the Victorian Expedition

Robert O'Hara Burke, Leader of the Victorian Expedition, 1860-1861

Portrait, mezzotint on paper

Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2007

Georg von Neumayer, c. 1860

Johnstone & Co

William Daniell after George Dance

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

Sir Joseph Banks, 1811

Portrait, soft ground etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Sir Joseph Banks, Bt

Sir Joshua Reynolds

Image

Esther Erlich

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper

Esther Erlich (b. 1955), a Melbourne-based painter, has been exhibiting since the early 1980s, often with the Libby Edwards Galleries in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and the Barry Newton Gallery in Adelaide.

3 portraits in the collection

Sidney Nolan, 1964

Axel Poignant

Purchased 2003

Joanna Gilmour

Previous exhibition, 2001

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

Who's Jo?

General content

Find out about the curator of the exhibition.

Nolan Heads

Nolan Heads will focus on the portraiture of one of Australia's most original painters and one of the few to have achieved an international reputation

Charles Summers, late 1860s

Batchelder & Company Photo

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

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

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.

John Longstaff

Portrait, hand-cut acetate stencil, aerosol enamel on canvas

Sir John Longstaff, born in Clunes, Victoria, studied at the NGV school from 1883 to 1887 and thenceforth at Corman's in Paris.

1 portrait in the collection

Bob Hawke, 2012

Luke Cornish

Purchased 2013

Charles Summers

Charles Summers (1825-1878) was an English born sculptor, who came to Australia in 1852.

2 portraits in the collection

William Robertson, 1866

Thomas Adams Hill

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

Portrait of His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria

Portrait of His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria, c. 1864

Thomas Clark

Portrait, oil on canvas

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

Sidney Nolan

Portrait, synthetic polymer paint and red ochre on canvas

Sir Sidney Nolan AC OM CBE (1917–1992) was one of the most original and inventive Australian artists of the postwar decades, and one of few Australian artists to achieve an international reputation in the twentieth century.

7 portraits in the collection

Jack Thompson, 2013

Dr Julie Dowling

Purchased 2015

William H. Bardwell

Portrait, inkjet print on paper

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

1 portrait in the collection

Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke, c. 1976 (printed 2017)

Robert McFarlane

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Richard Nicoll

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2008

Richard Nicoll (1977‒2016), fashion designer, was born in London but spent much of his childhood in Perth.

1 portrait in the collection

I'm not there

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

Ludwig Becker, 1861

Frederick Schoenfeld

Portrait, lithograph on paper

Purchased with funds provided by the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Canberra 2000

William Strutt

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper

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

1 portrait in the collection

Sidney Nolan, Western Australia, 1962 (printed 2000)

David Moore

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.

Thomas Foster Chuck

Previous exhibition, 2023

Thomas Foster Chuck (1826-1898), photographer and entrepreneur, was born in London and arrived in Victoria in 1861.

4 portraits in the collection

Annual Appeal

Listed by year

Honour board

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.

Through blue eyes

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2009

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.

Matthew Burnett, c. 1865

Henry Samuel Sadd

Portrait, steel engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

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.

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

NYSPP 2009

Previous exhibition, 2009

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

2020 Annual Appeal

Annual Appeal

In 2020 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Sally Robinson's remarkable portrait of author Tim Winton.

Sideshow Alley

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

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.

2021 Annual Appeal

Annual Appeal

In 2021 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Peter Brew-Bevan's portraits of athletes Turia Pitt, Leisel Jones OAM and Ellie Cole OAM.

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.

Bob Hawke