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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Stuart Campbell 2012
Nick Mourtzakis (b. 1951) is Melbourne-based artist and teacher. Mourtzajkis migrated to Melbourne with his Greek family in the early 1950s and trained at the Preston Institute of Technology and Mercer House Teachers' College in the early 1970s.
3 portraits in the collection
Nick Seymour (b. 1958), bass guitarist, grew up playing music with his brother and sisters.
2 portraits in the collection
Nick Sinclair is an acclaimed English photographer who works extensively in fashion and advertising.
2 portraits in the collection
Nick Cave AO (b. 1957), singer, songwriter and author, was born in Warracknabeal, Victoria, and educated at Caulfield Grammar School, where he formed his first band, The Boys Next Door.
6 portraits in the collection
Full time professional artist represented by the Woollahra Times Gallery in Sydney and Hart Galleries in Queensland..
1 portrait in the collection
An interview with graffiti artist Marc de Jong about the art of Howard Arkley.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
Commissioned with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 1999
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
Gift of the artist 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Jack Wodak 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds from the Patrick Corrigan Portrait Commission Series 2019
Professor David Chalmers explains his interest in philosophy and introduces some of his theories on the conscious mind.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Inner Worlds features the recently commissioned portrait of world-renowned philosopher of consciousness David Chalmers by Melbourne-based artist Nick Mourtzakis.
This display sets two impressive portraits from the collection into direct dialogue: Sam Jinks’ sculptural self portrait and Nick Mourtzakis’ painted portrait of David Chalmers, along with related maquette and sketches.Together they explore physical and psychological manifestations of the strata of self-hood.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Gift of the artist 2021
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Bleddyn Butcher was born in London and came to Australia when he was six.
5 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Bequest of Nick Enright AM 2004
Nathan Kelly (b. 1976), photographer, studied fine arts at the Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney before being named as one of Australia’s top 30 photography graduates by Australian Commercial Photography magazine.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Julia Horne and Nick Horne
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program 2015
Howard Arkley (1951-1999) was born, died, and spent the majority of his life in Melbourne, where he studied at Prahran CAE and Melbourne State College between 1969 and 1973.
3 portraits in the collection
Celebrate the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on our nation’s identity.
Outsiders tend to give Canberra a bad rap: sterile, plagued by politicians, a comatose capital for professionals and academics. Nick Cave once said he didn’t like the city because there were too many punks.
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.
Grant McLennan and Robert Forster both sang and wrote songs for The Go-Betweens, and McLennan wrote one of their greatest, 'Cattle and Cane', recalling the rural Queensland environment of his youth.
1 portrait in the collection
Beautiful punk love
An interview with photographer Harry Borden about his portrait of Michael Hutchence.
Dissections, showcases the hyper-realist sculptural self-portrait of artist Sam Jinks, Divide, alongside the painted portrait of philosopher David Chalmers by Nick Mourtzakis, which was commissioned by the Gallery in 2011.
Martin Philbey (b. 1962) is a Melbourne-based photographer who has amassed an archive of 100,000 images over his twenty-year career.
4 portraits in the collection
Reconnect and reflect with our new major exhibition, Australian Love Stories (in real life!) as we explore love, affection and connection in all its guises.
Paul Hester (1959–2005), musician and former drummer for Crowded House, was born in Melbourne.
2 portraits in the collection
Andrew Maccoll (b. 1978) is a photographer and creative director. Born into an artistic family (his father is a press photographer and his mother a documentary producer) he worked as a darkroom printing assistant while studying for his degree in Visual Arts in Photography at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Gai Waterhouse AO, thoroughbred racehorse trainer, is the daughter of legendary trainer Tommy Smith.
1 portrait in the collection
Portraits of Australia’s pioneering psychologists and artworks by artists fascinated by the subconscious mind.
Magazines are the portrait galleries of the 90s... Glossy is about magazines. The exhibition presents the work of eight photographers, Australian by birth or long-term residency, who are producing portraits for publication in magazines around the world.
Gift of the artist 2021
Purchased 2000
Gift of the artist 2021
Headspace 7: Me and My Place, the seventh in the National Portrait Gallery's series of student exhibitions, will be presented at Commonwealth Place. Me and My Place is the curatorial theme for the 2006 exhibition.
Crowded House is a much-loved Australian-New Zealand rock band formed in Melbourne in 1985 by talented singer/songwriter Neil Finn OBE (b.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Singer/songwriter and guitarist Neil Finn OBE (b. 1958) was born in Te Awamutu, Aotearoa New Zealand, a small town on the north island.
3 portraits in the collection
Jimmy Little AO (1937–2012), singer, actor and advocate, was a Yorta Yorta man raised at the Cummerangunja Mission near the Murray River, New South Wales.
3 portraits in the collection
Portraits from The Movement is the first comprehensive survey of photographs from the Juno Gemes archive, which has supported the Aboriginal struggle for justice in Australia from 1978 to the present day.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2020
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2020
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
This unique exhibition will give an insight into the private lives, pursuits and work of all the Nobel laureates associated with Australia
In 1976, without having been blooded on the Sydney or Melbourne pub circuit, The Saints recorded a single – ‘(I’m) Stranded’ – earning them the distinction of releasing a punk single before The Sex Pistols did.
Drawn from the Gallery's collection, the exhibition Face the Music explores the remarkable talents and achievements of Australian musicians, composers, conductors and celebrities associated with the music industry.
Recent research shows that two thirds of all Australians have a sterling interest in the arts and Australian history. This is just one of the promising findings to arise from the National Portrait Gallery’s commissioned snapshot of its national brand awareness, via a nationally representative survey.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2010. Donated through the Australian Governments Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2002
Boyd’s self-portrait at age 25 is joined by his equally emotive portraits of those around him.
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
Kylie Minogue AO OBE (b. 1968), the 'Princess of Pop', is Australia's most successful female recording artist of all time, selling more than 80 million albums worldwide, and the first woman to have a UK number one album across five consecutive decades.
5 portraits in the collection
While the blues-inspired hard guitar riffs of Australian pub rock were shaping tastes, a number of artists were developing music primed for success on the international stage.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2019
Alistair McGhie discusses Andrew MacColl's portrait photograph of Australian comedian Mick Molloy.
Former NPG Director Andrew Sayers discusses the art of commissioning portraits.
Australia has become recognised for the range and talent of its musicians, composers, conductors and celebrities in general associated with the music industry
Polly Borland's photograph of The Queen was commissioned by Buckingham Palace as part of a series of high profile celebrations to mark the Golden Jubilee.
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.
A reflection on the National Portrait Gallery's first four years.
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
A major new exhibition celebrating love in all its guises. Opening 20 March 2021.
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.
An exhibition that celebrates the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on the nation’s identity, opens at the National Portrait Gallery on 5 September, 2020.
An interview with the photographer.
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.
The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.
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.
A new painting by Jiawei Shen captures the vision and resolve of the Gallery's founder, L. Gordon Darling AC CMG.
The National Portrait Gallery today announced finalists for the inaugural Darling Portrait Prize, a national new $75,000 prize for Australian portrait painting, and released selected images from the final prize pool for the popular National Photography Portrait Prize.
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
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.
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.
Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2018 Prize.
Christopher Chapman looks at influences and insight in the formative years of Arthur Boyd.
Dr Christopher Chapman NPG Curator of Inner Worlds explains the development of an exhibition that spans from Surrealism to contemporary art.
Scott Redford discusses his dynamic portrait commission of motorcycling champion and 2008 Young Australian of the Year Casey Stoner.
Editor Stephen Phillips looks at the finalists' photographs through a judge's lens.
Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.
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.
Nathan Faiman delves into the rich life story and legacy of Alan Goldberg.
Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.
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.
How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be
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.
Penelope Grist reminisces about the halcyon days of a print icon, before the infusion of the internet’s shades of grey.
