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Roy Grounds, 1961

Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2006. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Roy Grounds, 1960-1961

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

Around the grounds

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

The Parkes

It wasn’t uncommon for the pro-beard fraternity of the mid nineteenth century to cite beards as a sign of wisdom on the grounds that Socrates and other ancient philosophers had worn them.

Tarcissius, 2006

Trevor Jamieson, 2016 by Brett Canet-Gibson

Maykarran, 2017

Finalist, DPA 2017
Single channel HD digital video using projection

Cocky McGrath

The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo

Lowe Kong Meng, c. 1887

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

John Howard and Janette Howard, 2000

Commissioned with funds provided by the Founding Patron, L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2000

Very fine and very like

When did notions of very fine and very like become separate qualities of a portrait? And what happens to 'very like' in the age of photographic portraiture?

Portrait of Henry Kendall, c. 1890-1894

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1850 (published)

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

Margaret Dodd, 2002

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

A colourful story from Sideshow Alley

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

Clement Meadmore, c. 1978

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Ron Grainer, printed 2003

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lewis Morley 2004

Trevor Jamieson, 2016

Purchased 2018

Ron Grainer, 1965 (printed 2002)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Justice Robin Millhouse, Maslin Beach, South Australia, 1992-1993 (printed 2019)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019

Queen Victoria

Last Sunday I had the privilege of appearing at the Canberra Writers’ Festival in conversation with Julia Baird. The subject of our session was Julia’s recent biography, Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman who Ruled an Empire.

Oz Rock

Two of the music industry’s highest-selling performers originated in suburban Australia. The Bee Gees started out in Brisbane, for instance, and AC/DC played their first gigs at a nightclub in inner Sydney.

The Hon E.G. Whitlam AC QC, 1980

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2002

Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1842

Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008

Matthew Burnett, c. 1865

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Recognition

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

Sarah and Ann Jacob, c. 1866

Purchased 2018

Powerful energy

Dr Christopher Chapman explores the symbolism in the portrait commission of Marcia Langton by Brook Andrew.

The 1850s to the 1880s

The restrained and cultivated facial hair fashions evident through the first decades of the 1800s were on the wane by the middle of the century, when hirsute faces became mainstream.

Figurative foundation

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

Blue Collar Icon

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

Making Portraits

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

Seeing stars

It has been suggested that Sir Thomas Brisbane’s interest in the New South Wales governorship was as attributable to his passion for astronomy as to the desirability of the position as a prestigious career move.

Time and light

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.

Tiny Trace of a Colonial Giant

At just 7.8 x 6.2 cm, the daguerreotype of Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa is one of the smallest works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

A man of superior attainments

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

In and out of focus

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

Profile of a marriage

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.

Us being ourselves

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

The importance of being bearded

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

Embrace your inner nerd

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.

Everybody, look serious

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

The Dissecting Room

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

The real Thea

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

Presence and absence

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

Demimonde liaisons

Jane Raffan feasts on modernity’s entrée in the Belle Époque theatre of the demimonde.

Nicholas Harding

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. 

The Thyssen Art Macabre

Books seldom make me angry but this one did. At first, I was powerfully struck by the uncanny parallels that existed between the Mellons of Pittsburgh and the Thyssens of the Ruhr through the same period, essentially the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Thrown together

Shipmates for years, James Cook and Joseph Banks each kept a journal but neither man shed light on their relationship.

Maria Caroline Brownrigg

At first glance, this small watercolour group portrait of her two sons and four daughters by Maria Caroline Brownrigg (d. 1880) may seem prosaic, even hesitant

Some prime ministers

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

The Black Death

The best horror stories are real. A flea sinks its proboscis into the skin of a sick black rat, feeds on its blood, and ingests lethally multiplying bacteria.

Petal to the mettle

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

The silent partner

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

All the way with K of K

Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.

The art of Inner Worlds

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

Less than six degrees of separation

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

Christmas Island

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.