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Peter English was an RAAF photographer from the early 1950s onward, taking air and ground photographs in Australia and Malaya.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Tony Sattler 2016
Sculptor Peter Schipperheyn talks about working with marble and his portrait of Peter Garrett.
Gift of the artist 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Peter Eve is a Darwin-based editorial, industrial and commercial photographer.
1 portrait in the collection
Father Peter Steele AM (1939-2012), poet and Jesuit Provincial, grew up in Perth, destined from youth for the priesthood.
1 portrait in the collection
To celebrate Peter Sculthorpe's 80th birthday, the National Portrait Gallery has created a feature exhibition of portraits and associated biographic material drawn from the National Portrait Gallery and the composer’s personal collection.
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
Peter Brock (1945-2006), a professional racing driver from 1972 to 1997, was undoubtedly Australia's best known and most popular motor sports personality.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Porter OAM (1929-2010), poet and critic, moved from Brisbane to London in 1951 at age 22.
2 portraits in the collection
Peter Travis AM (1929-2016), ceramic artist, designer and teacher, was born in the beachside Sydney suburb of Manly.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Allen (1944–1992), singer/songwriter and entertainer, was born Peter Allen Woolnough in Tenterfield, NSW.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter van der Veer, photographer, designer and painter, studied at Prahran College in the 1970s.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Booth (b. 1940) grew up in the English steel mill town of Sheffield, bike-riding on the nearby moors.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter G. Drewett is a Grafton craftsman. Drewett grew up in difficult economic circumstances in Melbourne.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Weiss AO (1935–2020), cultural benefactor, was born into a well-to-do family in Vienna, which they fled in the late 1930s.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter O'Shaughnessy (1923-2013), actor and producer, has produced many Australian plays and acted the major Shakespearian tragic roles both in Australia and overseas.
1 portrait in the collection
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
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
Peter Rushforth AO (1920-2015), ceramic artist, was born in Sydney and studied art at the Royal Melbourne Technical College after World War 2.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Churcher's first qualifications were in music, not art. Travelling through Europe after gaining his Licentiate for Piano Performance from Trinity College, London, he visited a great many galleries and was persuaded to return to his original preoccupation, painting.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Fisher has been one of Australia's foremost commercial photographers over the past 25 years.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Carey (b. 1943) is an author whose novels sweep between the fantastic and the realistic, the comic and the tragic, and the present and the past.
3 portraits in the collection
Peter Corris (1942-2018), author, was educated at Melbourne High School and the University of Melbourne.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Weir AM (b. 1944) is a film director. Educated at Scots College and the University of Sydney, he worked as a stage hand at Channel 7 and made documentaries for the Commonwealth Film Unit before directing The Cars That Ate Paris in 1974.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Sculthorpe AO OBE (1929–2014), composer, was born in Launceston and began music lessons around age seven, writing his first compositions by torchlight under the bedclothes at night.
4 portraits in the collection
Peter Schipperheyn (b. 1955), Melbourne-based sculptor, is well known for his contemporary marble and bronze sculptures of the human form.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Hall (1931-1995), architect, completed the Sydney Opera House after the Danish architect Jørn Utzon resigned from the project and left Australia in 1966.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Thomson AO MBE CBE (1929-2018), professional golfer, began to play the game at the age of 12.
2 portraits in the collection
Peter Dombrovskis, photographer and environmental activist, was born of Latvian parents in a refugee camp in Wiesbaden at the end of World War 2.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Hudson (b. 1950), is a landscape and portrait painter who lives and works in Maleny, Queensland.
5 portraits in the collection
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
Peter Wegner first participated in a group exhibition in 1977, when he had had no art training.
7 portraits in the collection
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
Recorded 1970
Recorded 1967
Peter Wilmoth’s boy-journalist toolkit for antagonising an Australian political giant.
Legendary Australian composer, Peter Sculthorpe, describes the development of his career.
Peter Russell-Clarke on colour in painting and cooking.
Australian Nobel Prize winner, Professor Peter Doherty, provides some entertaining insights into his career and the science profession.
Peter Brew-Bevan (b. 1969) is a leading Australian portrait and fashion photographer.
25 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004
Professor Peter Doherty (b. 1940), immunologist, shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1996 for his discoveries about how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Russell-Clarke, cook, started his career as a freelance cartoonist, working for advertising agencies in Australia and overseas.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Purves Smith (1912–1949), artist, went to Geelong Grammar with his lifelong friend Russell Drysdale.
2 portraits in the collection
Gift of Richard Elliott 2016. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Recorded 2022
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard Elliott
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard Elliott 2016
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard Elliott 2016
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard Elliott
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard Elliott
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Eve 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Courtesy of Kev Carmody, Song Cycles Pty Ltd.
Purchased with funds provided by Peronelle Windeyer 2021
Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Nicholson 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Nicholson 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Nicholson 2001
Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
Gift of Peter Weiss AO 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Purchased 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
Gift of Mr and Mrs Wilbur van Otteren 2002
Peter Wegner's approach to portraiture could be considered a visual record of the rapport, the dynamic space between artist and subject.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Gift of the artist 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mary Thomson 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Norman McBeath 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Eric Smith describes the agony and finally the ecstasy of winning the 1982 Archibald Prize with the portrait of Peter Sculthorpe.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2013
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2010
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Gift of the artist 2002
Gift of the artist 2021
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of James Semple Kerr 2004
Gift of the artist 2002
Gift of the artist 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of BHP Billiton 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds provided by Karen McLeod Adair and Anthony Adair 1999
Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.
Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2015
Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2021
The Portrait Gallery's paintings of two poets, Les Murray and Peter Porter, demonstrate two very different artists' responses to the challenge of representing more than usually sensitive and imaginative men.
Gift of the family of Professor Graeme Clark 2001. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of the artist 2013
Gift of the artist 2021
Gift of the artist 2021
Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2021
Purchased 2001
Commissioned with funds provided by The Stuart Leslie Foundation 2016
Purchased 2001
Gift of the artist 2004
Gift of the artist 2021
Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2021
Gift of the artist 2005
Commissioned with funds provided by The Stuart Leslie Foundation 2016
Gift of the artist 2010
Purchased 2001
Gift of the artist 2002
Gift of the artist 2002
Gift of the artist 2012
Purchased 2011
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Andrew Cannon and L. Gordon Darling AC CMG 2006
Magda Keaney explores the symbolism in eX de Medici's portrait of Midnight Oil.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
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
Purchased 2011
Bequest of Lady Maisie Drysdale 2001
Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, photographers and conservationists, shared a love of photography and exploring wilderness areas of Tasmania.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2020
The story behind Rick Amor's portrait of Professor Peter Doherty.
Purchased with funds provided by Alan Dodge AM and Neil Archibald 2021
The National Portrait Gallery has acquired an evocative depiction of soldier Peter Cosgrove by the Victorian-based painter, printmaker and sculptor Rick Amor.
Gift of the artist 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
The complex connections between four creative Australians; Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Robert Helpmann and Peter Sculthorpe.
Aimee Board ventures within and beyond to consider two remarkable new Gallery acquisitions.
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Commissioned with funds from the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Dr Sarah Engledow examines a number of figures in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery who were pioneers or substantial supporters of the seminal Australian environmental campaigns of the early 1970s and 1980s.
Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Bequest of Lady Maisie Drysdale 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
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
Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AO and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018
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
Dempsey’s people: a folio of British street portraits 1824–1844 is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.
Love versus the law
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
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
English born Selina Snow now lives and works in Sydney. She graduated from the prestigious Slade School of Art in London (1993) and Ecole des Beaux Art in Aix en Provence, France (1987).
4 portraits in the collection
With author and media identity Peter FitzSimons.
Jean-François de Galaup la Pérouse, Comte de la Pérouse (1741-1788), navigator, joined the French navy as a boy, rising to the rank of captain and serving with distinction and humanity in campaigns against the English in Hudson Bay in 1782.
4 portraits in the collection
A great addition to themes such as Australian History, Sport, Australian Studies, Cultural Studies, English and Visual Arts. For Year 9 – 12 students.
Lawrence English, Ellis Hutch and Lee Grant talk about the works they created for All that fall.
Leslie Allan ‘Les’ Murray AO (1938-2019) was acknowledged during his lifetime as one of the great poets writing in English.
4 portraits in the collection
Ellie Cole on the freedom of the pool and being photographed by Peter Brew-Bevan.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Barry Gibb (b. 1946) and twins Robin (b. 1949) and Maurice Gibb (1949-2003), were the brothers comprising the band The Bee Gees.
1 portrait in the collection
The works I chose are Quong Tart by Pamela See, and Monga Khan by Peter Drew.
Baron Jacques Hamelin (1768-1839), French naval officer, began his sailing career at seventeen, making his first long voyage on a merchant marine ship to and from Angola.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Norman McBeath 2011
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Purchased 2011
A companion to our 2013 exhibition Richard Avedon People. This resource ties in with the Australian Curriculum and is designed primarily for upper secondary school teachers of Visual Arts, English, History and Theory of Knowledge.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter E.B. Mansell 2018
Tamara Tchinarova (1919–2017), dancer, was one of the original 'baby ballerinas' of the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo.
2 portraits in the collection
George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga (1957–2007) was a Yolngu singer, activist and a founding member of the Warumpi Band.
2 portraits in the collection
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
Gift of the artist 2002
This issue of Portrait Magazine features portraits by Rick Amor, colonial charicatures, Les Murray, Peter Porter, Helen Garner and more.
This issue of Portrait Magazine features the Reveries: On Photography and Mortality exhibition, Peter Cosgrove, Martin Sharp, Terence Tao and more.
This issue of Portrait Magazine features Peter Brew-Bevan, daguerreotypes, the exhibition Depth of Field, Ern McQuillan's photographs of sportspeople and more.
This issue of Portrait Magazine features conservationists Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, Michael Leunig, legendary photographer Cecil Beaton and more.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015
Complementing our 2013 exhibition Elvis at 21, this resource has connections with the Australian Curriculum and is designed primarily for Year 10 teachers of English, History, Music and Visual Arts.
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.
David Malouf (b.1934), educated at Brisbane Grammar and the University of Queensland, left Australia at the age of 24 and remained abroad for a decade, teaching in England and travelling throughout Europe.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Bequest of Richard Divall AO OBE 2017
Nancy Wake AC (1912–2011) was one of the most-decorated women of the Second World War.
1 portrait in the collection
Jill Neville (1932–1997), writer and critic, grew up in Sydney and attended a Blue Mountains boarding school.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Walter Murdoch KCMG (1874–1970), academic and essayist, was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and came to Australia with his family in 1884.
1 portrait in the collection
Lewis Morley (1925–2013) established his reputation as one of the key British photographers of the 1960s and is known for his iconic image of a nude Christine Keeler straddling an Arne Jacobsen chair.
50 portraits in the collection
The photograph was a brief, candid moment, which unfolded into a portrait. Peter and I were in Silverton, NSW, chatting as our students explored the town. The weak afternoon light suddenly became dramatic and defined, so I asked Peter if I could take his portrait.
The eight photographers represent diverse styles, specialities and career paths. Abigail Varney, Peter Brew-Bevan, Martin Philbey, John Tsiavis, Michelle Day, Julian Kingma, and Giovanni Lovisetto.
Harry Borden is an English photographer who has specialised in photographing celebrities, among them Kylie Minogue.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter and Susan Dadswell 2015
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.
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009
Australia has become recognised for the range and talent of its musicians, composers, conductors and celebrities in general associated with the music industry
John Le Gay Brereton junior (1871–1933), writer and academic, was born in Sydney, the son of a doctor, also John, who had emigrated to Australia in the late 1850s.
1 portrait in the collection
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
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
Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson AC CVO MBE (b. 1931), former sprinter, was Governor of South Australia from 2001 to 2007.
3 portraits in the collection
Thomas Pearce (c. 1860-1909) was an apprentice on the English merchant vessel the Loch Ard, which embarked for Victoria in March 1878 carrying 37 crew and 16 passengers, many from the Carmichael family.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2020
Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet, David McAllister AM will join the Portrait Gallery’s national collection in a newly-commissioned portrait taken by illustrious Australian photographer, Peter Brew-Bevan.
Commissioned with funds provided by Peter Weiss AO 2018
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
This is the first in a series of National Portrait Gallery exhibitions to survey the portraits painted by artists who are not thought of, primarily, as portrait painters
Purchased 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Haskins is known for his poetic combinations of images and this exhibition of 'extended' portraits builds on this approach.
Purchased 2009
In Western religious art a Pietà, also called a ‘lamentation’, is an image of the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Christ.
Recorded 2021
Paul Kelly & The Portraits presents a multifaceted image of the performer over the course of his career.
Commissioned 2006
Giovanni Vendramini, engraver, went to London from his native Italy at the age of nineteen, where he honed his skills as a draughtsman under Francesco Bartolozzi.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2021
Nick Sinclair is an acclaimed English photographer who works extensively in fashion and advertising.
2 portraits in the collection
Thomas Lewis Atkinson (1817-c. 1890) is described in the Benezit Dictionary of Artists as 'one of the shining representatives of English engraving'.
1 portrait in the collection
Celebrate the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on our nation’s identity.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of the artist 2005. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Commissioned 2006
This unique exhibition will give an insight into the private lives, pursuits and work of all the Nobel laureates associated with Australia
Known as the 'Kings of Disco', The Bee Gees have sold over 120 million records worldwide and are among the highest-selling musical artists in history.
1 portrait in the collection
Revealing the backstories behind the NPG collection, Before hand features interviews with artists and sitters as well as working drawings, scrapbooks, sketches and footage taken in artists’ studios and out on location.
Bob Ellis (1942-2016) was a journalist, columnist, screenwriter, film director and playwright.
3 portraits in the collection
Graham Sutherland OM (1903–1980) was an English artist, best known as the painter of the portrait of Sir Winston Churchill aged 80, subsequently destroyed by the sitter's wife, Clementine.
1 portrait in the collection
Ralph Hope-Johnstone was a hydro-electric engineer and photographer who worked with Olegas Truchanas on the campaign to save Lake Pedder in the late 1960s.
1 portrait in the collection
Eye to Eye is a summer Portrait Gallery Collection remix arranged by degree of eye contact – from turned away with eyes closed all the way through to right-back-at-you – as we explore artists’ and subjects’ choices around the direction of the gaze.
The Hon Sir Reginald Talbot KCB (1841-1929), army officer and English MP, was governor of Victoria from April 1904 to July 1908.
1 portrait in the collection
To celebrate the centenary of the birth of poet Alec Derwent Hope AC OBE (1907-2000), the National Portrait Gallery exhibited a selection from its many portraits of Australian poets and authors.
By the end of the eighteenth century, crime, criminals and punishment were standard subjects for those engaged in the English print trade.
This exhibition goes behind-the-scenes and into the spotlight with professional photographers and the stars of Australian television, music and comedy. Whether negotiating the logistics of a big publicity shoot or quietly capturing moments on set during filming, the photographers' stories are intriguing and compelling.
Moses Griffith, topographer, draftsman, watercolourist and engraver, spent his life in the service of Thomas Pennant, antiquarian and amateur naturalist; although engaged as a servant, he was employed by Pennant as a full time artist from 1771.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney PC (1733-1800) was British Home Secretary in the Pitt Government, given responsibility for devising a plan to settle convicts at Botany Bay.
1 portrait in the collection
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), naturalist, established the principle of ‘unity of composition’.
1 portrait in the collection
Hugh Ramsay, the fashion of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson, Peter Wegner's centenarian series, John and Elizabeth Gould's family connections, Karen Quinlan's top five portraits and more.
The Circle of Friends Acquisition Fund for 2012 was dedicated to purchasing a portrait of David Malouf by Rick Amor.
Hugo Wolfsohn, a Dunera Boy, was Foundation Professor of Politics at Latrobe University.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Enid Hawkins 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Sir Leslie Ward (1851-1922), signing his work 'Spy', was the most famous of the stable of caricaturists, including Sir Max Beerbohm and Carlo Pellegrini, who worked for the weekly English magazine Vanity Fair from 1869 to 1914.
31 portraits in the collection
Sir Francis Beaurepaire (1891-1956), Olympic swimmer, businessman and civic leader, won his first Victorian swimming titles in 1906, following up with three national titles in 1908.
2 portraits in the collection
John Raphael Smith worked in various drapery establishments and painted miniatures before turning to engraving in London.
1 portrait in the collection
Australian photographer Rod McNicol has consistently analysed the passing of time through the evidence of the photographic portrait. At once confronting and tender, McNicol’s portrait photographs are bold and intimate.
From 2015 to 2017 the Acquisition Fund was focussed on Reg Richardson AM by Mitch Cairns, a finalist in the Archibald Prize 2014, and a great example of minimalist portraiture.
Darren McDonald gained his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) degree from RMIT in 2000, having completed an associate diploma in painting at the same institution.
1 portrait in the collection
Kristin Headlam's portrait of Chris Wallace-Crabbe was acquired with the support of the Circle of Friends in 2014.
Francis Edward (Frank) Wootton (1893-1940), jockey, was born into the family of a Sydney horse trainer who is said to have been so determined that his sons would become jockeys that he denied them adequate meals.
1 portrait in the collection
Rick Amor, noblest yet most unaffected of contemporary Australian portraitists, is also a painter of enigmatic, ominous landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes that haunt the viewer like dreams, dimly-recalled.
Drawn from the NPG’s burgeoning collection of cartes de visite, Carte-o-mania! celebrates the wit, style and substance of the pocket-sized portraits that were taken and collected like crazy in post-goldrush Australia.
'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.
Patricia 'Bambi' Tuckwell (1926-2018) was a leading Australian fashion model as well as a promising violinist.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Peter Ciemitis breached regulations when creating the portrait of the polymath environmental scientist George Seddon.
Iconic Australian fashion designer, Akira Isogawa discusses the development of his unique style.
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
The late Australian photographer Stuart Campbell produced superb photographs of Australian actors of stage and screen.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Edwin Dalton was an English painter, photographer and lithographer who spent some time in North America before setting up as a portrait painter in Melbourne in 1853.
5 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007
Juliet van Otteren's first passion were dance and riding her horses bareback across the countryside.
1 portrait in the collection
Peter Brew-Bevan discusses two experiences where his plans for his portraits produced surprising results.
Janette Howard (b. 1943), wife of former prime minister the Hon. John Howard OM AC, was born in Sydney.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 1999
Gift of the Jozef Vissel 2015
Philip Hunter (1958-2017), painter, studied art in Melbourne before holding his first solo exhibition there in 1982.
1 portrait in the collection
Focussing on the wide-ranging theme of loss and absence, this exhibition provides a moving ‘portrait’ of loss during the First World War on the Australian home front. Powerful symbolic images, including contemporary works, evoke the emotional intensity of loss. All that fall: Sacrifice, life and loss in the First World War is the National Portrait Gallery’s contribution to the Anzac Centenary.
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.
English-born Thomas Ellis Glover moved to New Zealand as a child and by his early twenties was working as a cartoonist, court reporter and journalist.
10 portraits in the collection
Robert Hobart, fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire (1760–1816), statesman, was a soldier in the war against the American colonies and served as aide-de-camp to several lord lieutenants of Ireland before becoming Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1789 to 1793.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Robert Edwards AO 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Henry Hoppner Meyer, thought to be the son of an engraver, was a nephew of the painter John Hoppner.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
A question lately cropped up in connection with Madame Melba as to whether fame and celebrity are not essentially the same thing. My feeling is that they are different.
Coral Browne (1913-1991) was an Australian actress who left for England in 1934.
1 portrait in the collection
Jenny Kee AO (b. 1947) is a fashion designer and an Australian style icon.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998
Ross Edwards (b. 1943), composer, became determined upon a life of composition as a child.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir (Alan) Charles Mackerras AC CBE (1925-2010) was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 1982 to 1985.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
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
Glenn McGrath makes a strong impact on the English batsmen and the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.
Purchased 2009
Tristan Humphries (1962-2000) was an English artist specialising in digital portraiture.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Commissioned with funds provided by Peter Weiss AO 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
Bruce Pollard (b. 1936), gallerist, established the Pinocotheca Gallery in a St Kilda mansion in 1967, and relocated it to an old hat factory in Richmond in 1970.
1 portrait in the collection
Arnold Haskell (1903-1981) was an English ballet critic who became a passionate advocate for Australia.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006
Antoine Fauchery (1823–1861) was a Parisian artist and writer, an occasional collaborator with Henri Murger, author of Scènes de la vie de bohème which was a chief source of the opera La bohème.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased 2006
Stuart Campbell, born in Ballarat, became interested in photography as a student at Swinburne Technical College in Melbourne.
10 portraits in the collection
Gift of the artist 2001
Gift of the artist 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Les Rowe 1998
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
George Coppin (1819-1906), comedian, entrepreneur and politician, cut his teeth in the world of the English itinerant theatre.
2 portraits in the collection
John Schaeffer AO (1940–2020), businessman, connoisseur and philanthropist, was a founding benefactor of the National Portrait Gallery.
1 portrait in the collection
Stella Bowen, painter and writer, grew up in Adelaide, where she studied with Margaret Preston.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Purchased with funds provided by Sir Roderick Carnegie 2003
In 2021 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Peter Brew-Bevan's portraits of athletes Turia Pitt, Leisel Jones OAM and Ellie Cole OAM.
Don Bachardy (b. 1935) is a portraitist who chronicles literary, musical, artistic and film personalities associated with Los Angeles.
3 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2018
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
Gift of Sir Charles Mackerras 2009
Nigel Boonham is a British sculptor. He studied under John Ravera from 1973-1977 and later worked in the studio of sculptor Oscar Nemon.
1 portrait in the collection
Chris O’Doherty (b. 1951), also known as Reg Mombassa, is an artist and musician.
2 portraits in the collection
Sir (Aynsley) Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) was an English conductor, composer and violinist.
2 portraits in the collection
Although perceived to be a recent phenomenon, the 'Aussie invasion' of Hollywood can actually be traced as far back as the early 1900s
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2007
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
Robert Dessaix (b. 1944) is a Hobart–based writer, translator and literary critic.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rex Dupain 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Gift of Ronald A Walker 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Allan Lowe (1907-2007) is considered to be one of the major ceramic artists of his time particularly in the field of arthenware (lower-fired and more colourful work than stoneware).
1 portrait in the collection
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
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
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.
Recorded 2017
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?
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
Richard Bell (b. 1953), an artist of Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) and Anglo-Celtic heritage, has described himself as an 'inactivist who kicked the habit'.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by Mary Isabel Murphy 2004
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
Lewis Morley has a great eye for a shot and a sharp ear for a pun
Matthew Flinders (1774–1814), was one of the world’s most accomplished navigators.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Roger Neill 2009
Paris based Australian photographer and filmmaker Nathalie Latham has an ongoing interest in the creative achievements of other Australian artists living in various locations around the globe.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
George Moore (1923-2008), champion jockey, was born in Mackay, Qld and was apprenticed in Brisbane in 1938.
1 portrait in the collection
When the stars align
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Carolyn and Peter Lowry 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Holocaust survivor, sculptor and human rights advocate Andrew Steiner OAM (b.
1 portrait in the collection
Commissioned with the assistance of funds provided by the Circle of Friends 2012
Purchased 2022
Harry Kewell (b. 1978), Australia’s greatest ever soccer export, attended Sydney’s Westfields Sports High School and the NSW Soccer Academy before trialling with English club Leeds United in 1995, at the age of 16.
2 portraits in the collection
Recorded 2017
AD Hope OBE (1907-2000), poet, literary critic and academic, was educated at Sydney University before winning a scholarship to Oxford.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
William Nicholas was born near London and is believed to have trained with English printmaker A.M Huffam.
2 portraits in the collection
Jack Purtell (1921-2017), jockey, had his first ride at the age of fifteen.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008
Purchased with funds provided by Harold Mitchell AC 2015
Nicolas Thomas Baudin (1754–1803), cartographic surveyor and naturalist, was sent by the French government to survey the coast of Australia in 1800.
1 portrait in the collection
Anne Boyd AM (b. 1946), composer and teacher, was born in Sydney and studied composition with Peter Sculthorpe at the University of Sydney before earning a PhD at the University of York.
1 portrait in the collection
Balang T.E. Lewis (1958–2018), a Murrungun man, was an actor, singer, songwriter and cultural leader.
2 portraits in the collection
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.
Linda Mary Jackson (b. 1950) is a fashion designer and artist. Having studied fashion design at Emily McPherson College and photography at Prahran Technical College, she travelled to New Guinea, through Asia and Europe, and worked for Parisian couture house Mia-Vicky.
1 portrait in the collection
Richard Flanagan (b. 1961) was born in Longford in northern Tasmania, the second youngest of the six children of Archie Flanagan, a primary school principal, and his wife Helen.
1 portrait in the collection
Axel Poignant (1906-1986) photographer, was born in England. His mother was English, his father Swedish.
4 portraits in the collection
Shane Maloney (b. 1953) is the creator of the popular 'Murray Whelan' series of six crime novels, beginning with Stiff (1994) and The Brush-Off (1996) and currently ending at Sucked In (2007).
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2014
Purchased 2012
Purchased 2000
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Australian entomologist and inventer of the Aerogard insect repellent, Douglas Frew Waterhouse describes the evolution of his career.
Purchased 2010
John Bell AO OBE (b. 1940), actor and director, is one of Australia's best-known theatre personalities.
3 portraits in the collection
Gift in memory of Frederick John Cato Kumm 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Betty Burstall AM (1926–2013) played a vital role in the development of theatre in Australia.
1 portrait in the collection
English lithographer and watercolourist Henry Heath Glover (c. 1810-1858) emigrated to South Australia in 1848 with his two sons - one of whom, Henry Heath Glover Junior (1828-1904) was also an illustrator and printmaker.
1 portrait in the collection
Senses, movement and imagination in portraits of children from the 2016 Prize. For Year 1 - 3 students.
Dymphna Clark (1916-2000), linguist, translator, chatelaine and matriarch, was born Hilma Dymphna Lodewyckx.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet OM AK KBE (1899–1985), medical scientist, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960 for his work with Sir Peter Medawar on acquired immunological tolerance, paving the way for successful human organ transplants.
5 portraits in the collection
Elaine Pelot-Syron grew up in Miami and came to Australia to teach English in 1971.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Danina Dupain Anderson 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased with funds provided by Sir Roderick Carnegie 2003
Bob Barnard AM (1933-2022), jazz cornettist, grew up in a Melbourne musical family and started on cornet with a local brass band at the age of 12.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004
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.
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM GCSI CB MD FRS (1817-1911), botanist, explorer and medical doctor, visited Australia as a member of James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition of 1839 to 1843.
2 portraits in the collection
William Saurin Lyster (1828–1880) was an Irish operatic impresario who introduced serious opera to the colonies.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2009
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
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
Edward Paine Butler (1811-1849), lawyer, and his wife Martha Sarah Butler (née Asprey, 1811-1864), arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1835.
1 portrait in the collection
Bridget Elliot (b. 1958), photographer, is acknowledged for her significant portraits of Australian composers and musical performers.
1 portrait in the collection
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
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
Gift of Ronald Walker 2002
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Merv Shearman 2012
Jinx Nolan (b. 1941), artist, is the daughter of writer Cynthia Reed and the adopted daughter of Sidney Nolan, whom Reed married in 1948.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2013
Geoffrey Shedley was a prominent South Australian architect, with a lifelong interest in drawing and sculpture.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2016
In 2020 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Sally Robinson's remarkable portrait of author Tim Winton.
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.
Henry Mayer (1919-1991) was Professor of Government at Sydney University from the 1960s to 1980s.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010
Gift of the artist 2021
Gift of Anne and Brennan Keats 2009
Purchased 2009
Susan Wakil AO (1933–2018), philanthropist, came to Sydney at fifteen from Bessarabia (Moldova/Romania).
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Summers (1825-1878) was an English born sculptor, who came to Australia in 1852.
2 portraits in the collection
Gift of Dr Simon Pockley, in memory of Diana Pockley 2023. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Frith family 2013
Gift of Marjorie Cotton Isherwood 2002
Purchased with funds provided by the Circle of Friends 2007
Therese Desmond (1902–1961), radio and stage actress, was born Mary Long in London and came to Australia as a teenaged orphan at the end of World War 1.
1 portrait in the collection
The artist's diary profiles six decades of Cassab's work, from the early portrait commissions of the 1950s to later paintings that have helped confirm her eminent place in the canon of Australian portraiture.
Bill Beach (1850-1935), sculler, came to New South Wales as a young boy with his English parents, who settled at Albion Park, NSW.
1 portrait in the collection
Recorded 2017
Purchased 2005
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
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
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015
The Darling Portrait Prize is a biennial national prize for Australian portrait painting honouring the legacy of Mr L Gordon Darling AC CMG.
Purchased 2016
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
Barry Sullivan (1821-1891), English actor, performed on the Melbourne stage between 1862 and 1866.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015
Gift of the artist 2003
John Marsden (1950–2024), author of Tomorrow, when the war began, is credited with encouraging generations of young people to read.
1 portrait in the collection
Betty Churcher AO (1931–2015), gallery director, author, painter and lecturer, was educated in Brisbane before studying art in London.
Purchased with funds provided by Robert Oatley AO 2007
Facing Memory: Headspace 4 provides us with valuable insights into the thoughts, creative processes and art-making practices of secondary students from Year 7 to Year 12 from sixty-two schools in the Australian Capital Territory, regional New South Wales and Victoria
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mr Peter Kampfner 2013
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011
Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011
Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011
My Favourite Australian is a project developed in collaboration with ABC TV and the people of Australia.
A reflection on the National Portrait Gallery's first four years.
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
Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation and Paul Dainty AM and Donna Dainty 2020
At a meeting by teleconference of the National Portrait Gallery Foundation last week, I found myself reporting that our forthcoming exhibition So Fine is going to be “a humdinger,” whereupon Tim Fairfax chuckled and said that he hadn’t heard that expression for years.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Joseph Browning Mummery (1888-1974), was born in inner suburban Melbourne to a musically-inclined family who fostered his interest in singing.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the artist 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased with the assistance of funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC 2021
Julie Edgar (b. 1951) is a Melbourne artist who studied at RMIT, Monash University and the University of Melbourne.
3 portraits in the collection
Gift of the artist 2005. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased 1999
Purchased 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2014
Recorded 2013
Gift of Rex Dupain 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
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
Gift of the artist 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Leigh Purcell 2012
This display celebrates 100 years of the Historic Memorials Collection and its role in commissioning portraits of parliamentary and judicial figures in Australia.
David Rankin OAM (b. 1946) came to Australia with his English parents at the age of two in 1948.
1 portrait in the collection
As a tribute to Sir William Dargie's singular contribution to Australian art and cultural institutions, and on the occasion of his birthday, The Australian War Memorial, Parliament House and the National Portrait Gallery will mount exhibitions of his work between May and October
Charles Gibson Millar (1839–1900), entrepreneur, was engaged in a number of industrial and agricultural enterprises in Australia during the 1870s, 80s and 90s.
1 portrait in the collection
George Nicholas CBE (1884-1960), pharmacist and philanthropist, grew up in South Australia and Victoria.
1 portrait in the collection
Francis Adams Iredale (1867–1926), cricketer and journalist, was born in the inner Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, the son of an ironmonger and his Irish-born wife.
1 portrait in the collection
Australian photographer Karin Catt has photographed world leaders, a host of rock stars and Oscar-winning compatriots Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, and Cate Blanchett.
Gift of Professor Tim Flannery 2016. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2005
I think the most important thing in capturing candid shots is to never take the photo when people are expecting you to press the shutter. The more poignant moments are not the stock standard images of people looking at the camera smiling but after or before when they are really interacting with each other.
Rod McNicol's method and motivation, 19th century Indigenous peoples, Barrie Cassidy on Bob Hawke, five generations of the Kang family from Korea and more.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2008
Tedi Bills on how social media in the age of COVID-19 has fanned the flames of our portrait fascination.
The exhibition Australians in Hollywood celebrated the achievements of Australians in the highly competitive American film industry.
Purchased 1998
Pat Corrigan's generous gift of 100 photographic portraits by Greg Weight.
Barry Humphries AO CBE (1934–2023), actor, writer and artist, was the world's all-time most successful solo theatrical performer.
12 portraits in the collection
The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges and thanks all its supporters.
Gift of the artist 2006
Kenneth Rowell AM (1920–1999), artist and theatre designer, grew up in Melbourne and became intent on a career in the theatre at a young age.
2 portraits in the collection
Boyd’s self-portrait at age 25 is joined by his equally emotive portraits of those around him.
Gift of the artist 2019
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004
Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018
Shane Warne AO (1969–2022) is the most successful wicket taker in Australia's Test history.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AC 2021
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Robert Edwards AO 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Joseph Darling (1870–1946) took up cricket in earnest while a student at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide and was fifteen when he set a new record for the highest innings (252) scored in South Australia.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2008
Basil Hetzel AC (1922-2017), medical scientist, came to South Australia as a three year old and was educated - like Nobel Prize winners William Lawrence Bragg, Howard Florey and Robin Warren - at St Peter's College and the University of Adelaide.
1 portrait in the collection
Commissioned with funds provided by Jim and Barbara Higgins, Sir Roderick Carnegie AC, Rupert Myer AO and Annabel Myer, Louise and Martyn Myer Foundation, Peter and Ruth McMullin, Diana Carlton, Professor Derek Denton AC, Harold Mitchell AC, Peter Jopling AM KC, Andrew and Liz Mackenzie, Patricia Patten, Tamie Fraser AO, Bruce Parncutt and Robin Campbell, Lauraine Diggins, Steven Skala AO and Lousje Skala 2017
Purchased 2010
Australian soprano Yvonne Kenny AM (b. 1950) studied science at the University of Sydney before deciding to pursue an opera career instead.
1 portrait in the collection
Masters of fare: chefs, winemakers, providores celebrates men and women who have championed the unique culinary characteristics and produce of Australia, enriching our lives with new ideas and new flavours over the past forty years.
Collette Dinnigan AO (b. 1965), designer and company director, was born in South Africa and settled in Australia in 1985 after a period in New Zealand, where she studied fashion design at the Wellington Polytechnic.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Dr Penny Olsen, Peter Woollard and Artemis Georgiades 2015
Essington Lewis CH (1881-1961) was chairman of BHP from 1950 to 1952, having been the company's chief general manager from 1938 to 1950.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the Hon. Susan Crennan AC KC 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Hong Fu was born in China in 1946 and held his first solo exhibition at the National Art Gallery, Beijing, in 1988.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Madeleine Howell 2013
Purchased 2021
Purchased with funds provided by Ruth and Peter McMullin 2013
John Henniker Heaton (1848-1914) worked as a jackaroo upon his arrival in New South Wales in 1864, but soon turned to journalism, writing for the Cumberland Mercury, Goulburn Penny Post and the Sydney based weekly the Town and Country Journal.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Frederick Cato (1858-1935), grocer and philanthropist, was born in a tent at Pleasant Creek (Stawell), to the Scottish wife of an English gold miner.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Dr Mary Newlinds and Sheena Simpson in memory of their father, D.A.S. Campbell, 2014
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010
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.
Mitch Cairns (b. 1984), painter and cartoonist, won the 2017 Archibald Prize with a portrait of his partner, artist Agatha Gothe-Snape.
2 portraits in the collection
John Lewin was Australia's first free-settler professional artist. He arrived in Sydney in 1800, intervention from influential patrons having secured him the assurance of rations.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Bill Collins OAM (1934-2019), television movie host and critic, was a high school English teacher and lecturer at teachers’ college before beginning a record 55-year stint on Australian television.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2014
William Dakin (1883-1950), zoologist, studied in his native England and, as an Exhibition scholar, in Kiel, Germany.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Mr Ronald Walker 2001
Penelope Grist discovers the rich narratives in Peter Wegner’s series of centenarian portraits.
Nici Cumpston immerses herself in the collective vision of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010
Brenda Niall AO (b. 1930), writer, academic and reviewer, is one of Australia's foremost biographers.
1 portrait in the collection
Tim Flannery (b. 1956), scientist, explorer and conservationist, grew up in Melbourne, where he completed degrees in English and earth sciences.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
The Victorian era has been described as one wherein death was a part of everyday experience. People died at home having been nursed in their final illnesses by family members.
Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.
Cressida Campbell AM (b. 1960), artist, has worked for decades in a studio at her home in Bronte, Sydney.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2014
Evonne Goolagong Cawley AC MBE (b. 1951), Wiradjuri tennis champion, was the number one women's tennis player in the world in 1971 and 1976.
3 portraits in the collection
Sir William Deane AC KBE KC (b. 1931), High Court judge, was governor-general of Australia from early 1996 to mid-2001.
1 portrait in the collection
Dr Sarah Engledow tells the story of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee portrait by Australian artist Ralph Heimans.
Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018
Professor Fred Gruen (1921-1997) was one of Australia's most influential economists.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Gift of an anonymous donor 2019
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
Tim Johnson, Sydney-based artist, was part of a circle of urban conceptual artists in the 1970s.
4 portraits in the collection
Harold Parker (1873-1962), sculptor, came to Brisbane with his English parents as a three-year old.
1 portrait in the collection
Commissioned with funds provided by Mrs Diana Ramsay AO 2008
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
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
Alex Miller (b. 1936), one of Australia’s most decorated and popular authors, migrated from England to Australia on his own as a sixteen-year-old.
3 portraits in the collection
Penelope Grist spends some quality time with the Portrait Gallery’s summer collection exhibition, Eye to Eye.
Conly John Paget Dease (1906-1979), actor and broadcaster, spent thirty years as one of the signature voices of the ‘Golden Age’ of Australian radio.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2014
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Purchased 2021
Tracey Holmes (b. 1966), sports broadcaster and journalist, has covered twelve Olympic Games and was the first woman to host an Australian national sports program, Grandstand.
1 portrait in the collection
David Wenham AM (b. 1965), actor, studied drama at the Nepean College of Advanced Education (now the University of Western Sydney), graduating with a BA in Performing Arts in 1987.
1 portrait in the collection
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 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
Scoring first prize in New South Wales for Art in the 1983 HSC was a signal that a talented creative career lay ahead and this has indeed proven the case.
2 portraits in the collection
Richard Tognetti AO (b. 1965), violinist, conductor and composer, trained with William Primrose in Wollongong and Alice Waten in Sydney before undertaking further studies with Igor Ozim in Switzerland.
2 portraits in the collection
Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.
This exhibition traces the creative output of nearly 50 years by one of Australia's landmark living photographers.
Gift of the artist 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
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.
Recorded 2022
Henry Searle (1886–1889), a sculler known as the ‘Clarence River Comet’, took up rowing as a boy as a means of getting himself and his siblings to and from school.
1 portrait in the collection
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
(Elizabeth) Betty Churcher AO (1931–2015), gallery director, author, painter and lecturer, was educated in Brisbane before studying at the Royal College of Art in London.
3 portraits in the collection
Jenny Howard née Daisy Blowes (1902-1996), stage performer, made her name in her native England as ‘the poor man’s Gracie Fields’, recording covers of Fields’s songs for a cut-price label and impersonating the star onstage.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014
Following the success of Glossy: Faces, Magazines, Now in 1999 the National Portrait Gallery again highlights the huge array of contemporary portraiture in the pages of magazines.
Macfarlane Burnet and Patrick White
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
Greg Chappell AO MBE (b. 1948), cricketer, captained the Australian team from 1975 to 1977 and again from 1979 to 1983, playing in Kerry Packer's breakaway World Series team in between.
1 portrait in the collection
Reinis Zusters studied art briefly in Germany before arriving in Australia as a Latvian refugee in 1950.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
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
Stan Grant (b. 1963), a proud Wiradjuri man born in Griffith, New South Wales, grew up wanting to be a journalist.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
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
Gamaliel Butler (1783–1852), lawyer and free settler, emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land in 1824 with his wife, Sarah (née Paine, 1787–1870).
2 portraits in the collection
William Dampier (1651-1715), seafarer and writer, had spent a good deal of time at sea as a buccaneer and merchant sailor before he spent three months in 1688 around King Sound (northern Western Australia) on the Cygnet.
1 portrait in the collection
Dave Tice (b. 1950) was the lead singer for the trailblazing Australian hard rock band Buffalo.
1 portrait in the collection
Ivy Shore (1915–1999), painter, was born in Melbourne, daughter of a South Australian suffragette, Elka, and engineer John Williams.
2 portraits in the collection
Bob Ellis (1942–2016) was a journalist, columnist, screenwriter, film director, playwright, speechwriter and critic.
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.
‘The Australian Wonder’, Johnny Day (1856–1885), was an undefeated world-champion juvenile walker.
1 portrait in the collection
Angus's latest Trumbology is accompanied by the following caveat: 'This one is reeeeeeally geeky.'
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Neville Bonner (1922–1999) was the first Indigenous Australian elected to federal parliament.
2 portraits in the collection
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
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
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.
The National Portrait Gallery acquired a beguiling silhouette group portrait by Samuel Metford, an English artist who spent periods of his working life in America.
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
Purchased 2014
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Stuart Campbell 2012
Gift of the artists 2005
Purchased 2018
Sir Laurence Hartnett (1898-1986), automotive engineer, was born in Woking, Surrey.
1 portrait in the collection
Robert Whitaker, English photographer, spent three years in Melbourne in the early 1960s, becoming friends with Mirka and Georges Mora, Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer, the Heide crowd and Martin Sharp and Richard Neville.
1 portrait in the collection
James Tylor (b. 1986) is an Australian multi-disciplinary contemporary visual artist.
1 portrait in the collection
Patricia Piccinini (b. 1965) is an artist best known for her mutant life-like creatures rendered in silicone and her iconic hot-air balloons.
1 portrait in the collection
Kevin Gilbert (1933-1993), Indigenous activist, writer and artist, wrote the first play by an Aboriginal person to be publicly performed in Australia.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2018
David Collins (1756–1810), lieutenant-governor, began his career in the British Navy, rising to the rank of captain before being returning to dry land and being placed on half-pay in late 1783.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Born: 1961, Melbourne
Works: Melbourne
Walter Lindrum, world-famous billiards player, was one of Australia's greatest sporting champions.
Focusing on the wide-ranging themes of loss and absence, All that fall: Sacrifice, life and loss in the First World War creates a moving portrait of mourning and sacrifice as experienced on the Australian home front during the First World War.
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.
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
Dr Sarah Engledow was appointed Historian at the National Portrait Gallery in 1999.
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
Danila Vassilieff, born in Russia, arrived in Australia in the early 1920s having served in a Cossack cavalry regiment, been captured by Communist forces and escaped via Persia and India to China.
1 portrait in the collection
The immediate chain of events that led to the outbreak of the First World War began 100 years ago on June 28.
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
Sir Percy Spender KCVO KBE QC (1897-1985) was a politician, statesman, diplomat and judge.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Tim Jarvis AM (b. 1966), environmental scientist, author and adventurer, was the Australian Geographic Society’s Adventurer of the Year in 2013 and its Conservationist of the Year in 2016 – the only person ever to have received both awards.
1 portrait in the collection
Piper (life dates unknown), also known as John Piper, was a Wiradjuri man who acted as a guide to Thomas Mitchell’s surveying expedition along the Murray and Darling Rivers into present-day Victoria in 1836.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of BHP Billiton 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Thomas Stange Heiss Oscar Asche (1871–1936), actor, director and producer, was one of Australia’s most successful theatre exports.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
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
First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.
Mary Elizabeth Maud Chomley OBE (1872–1960) has been described as the 'divine angel of mercy' for Australian prisoners of war during the First World War.
1 portrait in the collection
Olegas Truchanas (1923-1972) was born in 1923 in Siauliai, Lithuania.
1 portrait in the collection
Ashleigh Wadman rediscovers the Australian characters represented with a kindly touch by the British portrait artist Leslie Ward for the society magazine Vanity Fair.
Binem (Bill) Grunstein (1921-2013), garment manufacturer and artist, escaped the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941, having seen his parents and most of his family members die of typhus or disappear.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2019
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.
Hilary McPhee AO (b. 1941), writer and editor, began her career at Meanjin before starting a small magazine, Theatre.
1 portrait in the collection
Annette Kellerman (1886–1975), champion swimmer and entertainer, was among the early twentieth century's most recognisable women.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family, the Ian Potter Foundation and John Schaeffer AO 2009
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.
Purchased 2001
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
The then Minister for the Arts and Sport, Rod Kemp, reflects on the value of the Cultural Gifts Program.
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.
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).
Herbert John Louis (Bert) Hinkler (1892-1933), aviator, worked with a photographer and in sugar mills before joining the Queensland Aero club and taking a correspondence course in mechanics.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 1999
Artist David M Thomas lists some of the ideas and influences behind his video portraits.
It is now a little more than 178 years since the French Academy of Sciences was made aware of the invention of the daguerreotype process.
Introduction The National Portrait Gallery’s photographic exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus explores various interpretations of Australian sporting men and women.
John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.
The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.
Gift of the artist 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lyn Williams AM 2011
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.
This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of self-portraits in Australia, from the colonial period to the present
Purchased 2006
Hugh Jackman AC (b. 1968) is the ultimate triple threat – actor, singer and dancer.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2011
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Robert Dessaix 2000
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Gideon Haigh discusses portraits of Australian cricketers from the early 20th century
Charles Haddon Chambers the Australian-born playboy playwright settled permanently in London in 1880 but never lost his Australian stance when satirising the English.
Penny Grist on motivation, method and melancholy in the portraiture of Darren McDonald.
Gift of the Estate of Stuart Campbell 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014
Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Mark Haworth-Booth explains why Bill Brandt is one of the most important British photographers of the Twentieth Century.
The biographical exhibition of Barry Humphries was the first display of its kind at the National Portrait Gallery.
More than eighty treasures from the National Portrait Gallery London will travel to Canberra for a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from March 2022.
David Ward writes about the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Gift of the Karmel family in memory of Lena and Peter Karmel 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Rock’s raw potency made it the ideal medium for fomenting protest. The 1970s, 80s and onwards saw calls for social and environmental justice ring out through song.
John Lort Stokes (1812–1885), explorer, naval officer and surveyor, joined the navy at age twelve and age thirteen was assigned to HMS Beagle as a midshipman.
1 portrait in the collection
Lee Tulloch remembers her great friend NIDA-trained actor turned photographer Stuart Campbell.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
An exploration of national identity in the Canadian context drawn from the symposium Face to Face at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2004.
Purchased 2009
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.
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
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.
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.
Adrian Rawlins (1939-2001), poet, performer and promoter, grew up in a Jewish household in Caulfield and St Kilda.
1 portrait in the collection
The Gallery subscribes to the social model of disability that distinctively signals the difference between a person’s individual condition or impairment, and the barriers they experience which are created by the environment and society around them.
Marie Carandini (née Burgess, 1826–1894), aka 'Madame Carandini', was seven years old when her family arrived in Van Diemen's Land as assisted immigrants.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
It was definitely a candid encounter as was the expression on the face. It was constructed insofar as the image was deliberately taken from a distance so as to minimize intrusion and to magnify the effect of the image.
Marion Borgelt (b. 1954) grew up on a farm in the Wimmera district in western Victoria and attained her Diploma in Fine Art, majoring in painting, from the South Australian School of Art in 1976.
1 portrait in the collection
Joanna Gilmour travels through time to explore the National Portrait Gallery London’s masterpieces in Shakespeare to Winehouse.
Purchased 2010
Arthur Thomas 'A T' Woodward (1865–1943), painter and art scholar, was born in Birmingham, England.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Gift of Joan Collins and the Todd-Wilson family in memory of Bill Collins 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers celebrates the support given to the Gallery by Gordon and Marilyn Darling.
Sir Charles Nicholson (1808-1903), statesman, landowner, businessman, connoisseur, scholar and physician, was born illegitimately into unpropitious circumstances in Yorkshire.
2 portraits in the collection
An exhibition devoted to Hans Holbein's English commissions shows the portraitist bringing across the Channel new technical developments in art - with a dazzling facility.
The portrait of Janet and Horace Keats with the spirit of the poet Christopher Brennan is brought to life by artist Dora Toovey.
On this day eight hundred years ago at Runnymede near Windsor, King John signed Magna Carta.
There is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, an English painting, datable on the basis of costume to about 1745, that has for many years exercised my imagination.
The National Portrait Gallery's acquisition of the portrait of Edward John Eyre by pioneering English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
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.
English artist Benjamin Duterrau took up the cause of the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania with his detailed and sympathetic renderings.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Purchased 2010
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.
Christopher Chapman profiles Chris Lilley, actor and creator of Angry Boys.
Sandra Bruce explores a new acquisition that has within it a story of interconnectivities in the Australian art world.
Shen Jiawei was born in China. During the Cultural Revolution he laboured in the Great Northern Wilderness, but even as he worked there, he gained recognition as an artist.
Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.
Sarah Engledow is seduced by the portraits and the connections between the artists and their subjects in the exhibition Impressions: Painting light and life.
Delve into the lives, loves and labour of the world’s most prominent portrait galleries in this international conversation series.
The National Portrait Gallery acquired the self-portrait by Grace Cossington Smith in 2003.
Alison Weir explores the National Portrait Gallery, London and the BP Portrait Award to find what makes a good painted portrait - past and present.
William Yang shares the stories behind his autobiographical self portraits that celebrate his cultural heritage and identity.
Purchased 2018
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.
Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018
Henri-Cartier-Bresson invented the grammar for photographing life in the 20th century.
It is a painful truth, but one which must be faced up to, that the pavlova, that iconic Australian dessert, a staple since the 1930s, was actually invented in New Zealand.
In April 2006 the National Portrait Gallery showcased Australian portraits at the Fredenksborg Castle in Denmark.
Australian photojournalist Stephen Dupont's Afghanistan project captures the human experience of a country in reconstruction.
British novelist and poet, Michael Rosen, weaves a tale about his early encounters with creativity and the self-portrait of a childhood friend.
Bess Norriss Tait created miniature watercolour portraits full of character and life.
Phil Manning celebrates a century of Brisbane photographic portraiture.
The National Portrait Gallery, has welcomed the newest portrait commission of Emeritus Professor Derek Denton AC by Evert Ploeg.
Talma Studios opened in Sydney in March 1899 in a George Street premises next door to the GPO.
1 portrait in the collection
Michael Desmond profiles the Australian songwriter and performer Neil Murray and his contribution to Australian music.
An interview with the photographer.
Michelle Fracaro examines the life of World War II nurse Margaret Anderson, whose portrait by Napier Waller is in the NPG collection.
As part of its ongoing program of commissions of portraits of prominent Australians, the National Portrait Gallery has unveiled a portrait of Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson by South Australian artist Avril Thomas.
This year (in March) we will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery. In the life of institutions, twenty years is not a long time.
Take a peek at a selection of the portraits you can see in the exhibition.
Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny (1864–1947) was one of the most celebrated Australian expatriate artists of his generation, achieving a degree of success in Paris in the 1890s and early 1900s that was unmatched by his peers.
3 portraits in the collection
Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.
We were in Gaza shooting a documentary and we had heard about the orphanages and wanted to visit and document some of the children who had lost parents during the wars in Gaza.
Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.
Penelope Grist charts an immersive path through Stuart Spence’s photography.
Dr Sarah Engledow describes the achievements of internationally renowned burns and trauma surgeon Professor Fiona Wood.
The oil portrait of Sir Frank Packer KBE by Judy Cassab was gifted to the National Portrait Gallery in 2006.
Chris O'Doherty, also known as Reg Mombassa, is best-known for his Mambo imagery but he also paints a lot of self portraits.
In 2023 the Annual Appeal was focussed on a work by one of Australia's best loved and most successful portrait painters, Judy Cassab AO CBE, depicting model, entrepreneur and deportment icon, June Dally-Watkins OAM.
Dr Anne Sanders previews the works in the new focus exhibition Paul Kelly and The Portraits.
I have been reading systematically through the ads in the earliest issues of the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, such a rich vein of information about certain aspects of daily life in Regency Sydney.
Tennyson's Enoch Arden was inspired by a story that Thomas Woolner passed on to him – but whose story and of whom?
Sarah Engledow on a foundational gallery figure who was quick on the draw.
Celebrating a new painted portrait of Joseph Banks, Sarah Engledow spins a yarn of the naturalist, the first kangaroo in France and Don, a Spanish ram.
Tamsin Hong recounts the tale of Marion Smith, the only known Australian Indigenous servicewoman of World War One.
Emma Kindred looks at the career of Joan Ross, whose work subverts colonial imagery and its legacy with the clash of fluorescent yellow.
Matthew Jones on the upshot of a St Kilda Road outrage.
Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.
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.
Glynis Jones on the Powerhouse’s retrospective of one of Australia’s foremost fashion reportage and social photographers.
Celebrates the centenary of the first national art collection, the Historic Memorials Collection, housed at Australia's Parliament House.
Dr Sarah Engledow traces the significant links between Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo and Evelyn Chapman through their portraits.
Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers describes the 1922 Self-portrait with Gladioli by George Lambert.
The full-length portrait of HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark by artist Jiawei Shen, has become a destination piece for visitors.
Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.
Lecture by Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, given at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra on 28 April 2006.
We encourage you to look, to feel, to think, to question and most importantly, to identify and connect.
Jennifer Coombes explores the lush images of Picnic at Hanging Rock, featuring Anne-Louise Lambert’s Miranda, the face of the film.
Ellie Buttrose reveals the web of connection behind Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore’s kith and kin, which won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale 2024.
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
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.
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.
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.
Anne Sanders and Christopher Chapman bring passionate characterisation to Express Yourself, the Portrait Gallery collection exhibition celebrating iconoclastic Australians.
David Gist steps beyond the public relations veneer of Australia’s official Vietnam War portrait photographs.
Dr Christopher Chapman, curator of Inner Worlds: Portraits & Psychology looks at Albert Tucker's Heidelberg military hospital portraits.
Karen Vickery on Chang the Chinese giant in Australia.
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.
Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.
Traudi Allen discovers sensitivity, humour and fine draughtsmanship in the portraiture of John Perceval.
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.
Scientists tend to conjure up images of men in white coats in labs but this is just one stereotype in an evolving history of how we have perceived scientists, and how their profession has been understood over the years.
Portraits of philanthropists in the collection honour their contributions to Australia and acknowledge their support of the National Portrait Gallery.
David Hansen’s tribute to his close friend, prince of words and former National Portrait Gallery director, the late Angus Trumble.
Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.
Andrew Sayers explores the self-portraits created by Australian artist Sidney Nolan.
Christopher Chapman looks at influences and insight in the formative years of Arthur Boyd.
Those of you who are active in social media circles may be aware that through the past week I have unleashed a blitz on Facebook and Instagram in connection with our new winter exhibition Dempsey’s People: A Folio of British Street Portraits, 1824−1844.
Stephen Valambras Graham traverses the intriguing socio-political terrain behind two iconic First Nations portraits of the 1850s.
One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.
The portrait of Dr. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster from 1780, is one of the oldest in the NPG's collection.
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.
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.
Joanna Gilmour dives into the life of Australian swimming legend Annette Kellerman.
Harold Cazneaux's portraits of influential Sydneysiders included Margaret Preston and Ethel Turner, both important figures in the development of ideas about Australian identity and culture.
Representations of the inhabitants of the new world expose the complexities of the colonisers' intentions.
Leo Schofield introduces the exhibition, Masters of fare: chefs, winemakers, providores.
Michael Wardell’s personal insight into Jacques van der Merwe’s New Arrivals.
Karl James gives short shrift to doubts about the profile of General Sir John Monash.
Cartoonist Michael Leunig's insights into the human condition and current affairs have become famous Australia-wide.
Christopher Chapman reveals the intersection of iconoclastic Japanese figures Yukio Mishima and Tamotsu Yato.
The exhibition Depth of Field displays a selection of portrait photographs that reflect the strength and diversity of Australian achievement.
Basil grew into a speckled beauty – a long-legged leaper and an exceptionally vocal dog, with a great register of sounds, ascending in shock value from a whimper to a growl to a bark to a yelp that’s a violation of the ears.
Sarah Engledow looks at three decades of Nicholas Harding's portraiture.
Gillian Raymond investigates the history of humanoid robots and asks, is this the future of portraiture?
Gallery directors Karen Quinlan and Tony Ellwood talk to Penelope Grist about the NPG and NGV collaborative exhibition, Who Are You: Australian Portraiture.
Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2014 Prize.
Sarah Engledow casts a judicious eye over portraits in the Victorian Bar’s Peter O’Callaghan QC Portrait Gallery.
Penelope Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2020 Prize.
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.
Christopher Chapman contemplates the provocative performance art of Chris Burden.
Martin Sharp fulfils the Pop art idiom of merging art and life.
The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825.
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.
Esther Erlich’s portrait of Lady McMahon.
Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’.
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.
An exhibition of humanness in ten themes by Penelope Grist.
Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.
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.
Traversing paint and pixels, Inga Walton examines portraits of select women in Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits.
Michael Desmond in conversation with University of Houston professor of philosophy Cynthia Freeland.
Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.
Joanna Gilmour profiles Violet Teague, whose sophisticated works hid her originality and non-conformity in plain sight.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life of Chinese-Australian businessman and philanthropist Quong Tart.
Joanna Gilmour recounts the story of ill-fated sea voyages in the early stages of the Antipodean colony.
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.
Ron Ramsey, former Director of Cultural Relations at the Embassy of Australia interviewed NPG Washington Director, Marc Pachter, about their building renovations.
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.”
The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.
Aviation carried women’s roles in society to greater heights – fashion followed suit.
Alwin Reamillo was born in Manila, Philippines in 1964. He studied painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, and began his career as a visual art teacher at the Philippine High School for the Arts.
Sarah Engledow likes the manifold mediums of Nicholas Harding’s portraiture.
Angus Trumble salutes the glorious portraiture of Sir Thomas Lawrence.
George Selth Coppin (1819-1906) comedian, impresario and entrepreneur, was a driving force of the early Australian theatre.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life of a colonial portrait artist, writer and rogue Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.
Anne Sanders finds connections in Inner Worlds between Hungarian expatriates and the development of psychoanalysis in Australia.
This edited version of a speech by Andrew Sayers examines some of the antecedents of the National Portrait Gallery and set out the ideas behind the modern Gallery and its collection.
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.
Robyn Sweaney's quiet Violet obsession.
A focus on Indigenous-European relationships underpins Facing New Worlds. By Kate Fullagar.
Ensconced and meditative in crisp Tasmania, Joanna Gilmour pays tribute to passionate green advocate and photographer Olegas Truchanas.
Inga Walton traces the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, revealed in the NGV’s summer retrospective.
Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.
National Portrait Gallery director Karen Quinlan AM nominates her quintet of favourites from the collection, with early twentieth-century ‘selfies’ filling the roster.
Jerrold Nathan's portrait of Jessie Street shows the elegant side of a many-faceted lady.
Charting a path from cockatiel to finch, Annette Twyman explores her family portraits and stories.
Penelope Grist finds inspiration in pioneering New Zealand artist, Frances Hodgkins.
April Phillips (Wiradjuri-Scottish, kalari/galari) yarns with Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley about portraiture, resilience and the spirit held within fire.
Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.
Sarah Engledow on Messrs Dobell and MacMahon and the art of friendship.
Jenny Gall delves into Starstruck to celebrate some of Australian cinema’s iconic women.
‘Everybody’s lives are built by so many influences, and for me, it is writers, artists and activists who have influenced how I think about the world.’
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.
Fiona Gruber investigates the work of Australian painter Kristin Headlam.
Politics and personae in the portraiture of TextaQueen by Jane Raffan.
Krysia Kitch reviews black chronicles at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Christopher Chapman takes a trip through the doors of perception, arriving at the junction of surrealism and psychoanalysis.
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.
The southern winter has arrived. For people in the northern hemisphere (the majority of humanity) the idea of snow and ice, freezing mist and fog in June, potentially continuing through to August and beyond, encapsulates the topsy-turvidom of our southern continent.
Tenille Hands explores a portrait prize gifted to the National Screen and Sound Archive.
Sharon Peoples contemplates costumes and the construction of identity.
Jane Raffan examines unique styles of Indigenous portraiture that challenge traditional Western concepts of the artform.
Joanna Gilmour explores the fact and fictions surrounding the legendary life of Irish-born dancer Lola Montez.
Jennifer Higgie reveals how Alice Neel reinvigorated 20th century portraiture with her honest and perceptive depictions of the human experience.
Archie 100 curator (and detective) Natalie Wilson’s nationwide search for Archibald portraits unearthed the fascinating stories behind some long-lost treasures.
Dr Christopher Chapman NPG Curator of Inner Worlds explains the development of an exhibition that spans from Surrealism to contemporary art.
Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.
Sir William Dobell painted the portraits of Sir Charles Lloyd Jones and Sir Hudson Fysh, who did much to promote the image of Australia in this country and abroad.
Tom Fryer surveys the twentieth-century architectural project, and finds representation and the portrait were integral elements.
Dr Sarah Engledow discusses the recent gift of works by David Campbell.
Aimee Board traces Judy Cassab’s path to the Australian outback, arriving at the junction of inspiration and abstraction.
Joanna Gilmour describes some of the stories of the individuals and incidents that define French exploration of Australia and the Pacific.
Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture.
Aircraft designer, pilot and entrepreneur, Sir Lawrence Wackett rejoins friends and colleagues on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.
Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.
Aimee Board reveals method, motivation and mortality in the portraiture of Rod McNicol.
Inga Walton delves into the bohemian group of artists and writers who used each other as muses and transformed British culture.
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.
A toast to the acquisition of an unconventional new portrait of former Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce.
Joanna Gilmour explores photographic depictions of Aboriginal sportsmen including Lionel Rose, Dave Sands, Jerry Jerome and Douglas Nicholls.
Over the years the young Nicholas Harding got his hands on various mice and guinea pigs, but they served mainly to illustrate the concept of mortality.
Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.
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.
Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.
How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.
Dr Sarah Engledow puts four gifts to the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection in context.
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.
Joanna Gilmour reflects on merging collections and challenging traditional assumptions around portraiture in WHO ARE YOU.
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.
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.
Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.
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.