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Thomas Mackdougall Brisbane (1773-1860) was born into an aristocratic Scottish family and entered the army at the age of 16.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008
Recorded 1974
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.
Purchased 2001
Purchased 2003
Since 1993 Brisbane-based artist David M Thomas has investigated self identity through art works that encompass painting, text, audio, video and performance.
An interview with Australian astronaut, Dr. Andy Thomas, who describes the experience of space travel.
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
Avril Thomas (b. 1956), artist, was born in Malaysia and went to boarding school in Scotland and Australia.
2 portraits in the collection
Rover Thomas (1926-1998), Kukatja-Wangkajunga artist, was born in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia and worked as a stockman and fencer before losing his employment upon the introduction of equal pay for indigenous workers in 1975.
1 portrait in the collection
Guboo Ted Thomas (1909–2002), land rights activist, was a tribal Elder of the Yuin nation and grew up on the Wallaga Lake Reserve near Narooma.
1 portrait in the collection
Andy Thomas AO (b. 1951) is an astronaut. Born and educated in Adelaide, an engineer by profession, he managed a number of aeronautical programs and patented several inventions before joining NASA in 1992.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Phillips was born in Dudley, Warwickshire and initially trained as a glass painter before moving to London, aged 20, with a letter of introduction to the painter Benjamin West.
6 portraits in the collection
Thomas Daunt Lord (1783–1865) was the commandant of the convict station on Maria Island from 1825 until 1832.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Buddle (1812-1883), Wesleyan missionary, worked for 42 years in New Zealand, ministering to Maori and colonists in the Waikato, Auckland and the south.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Cook produced portraits for the Gentleman's Magazine and frontispieces for book publishers, as well as a number of single plates in different genres for Boydell.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Muir (1765-1799), lawyer, political activist and political convict, began studies at the University of Glasgow at the age of twelve.
2 portraits in the collection
Thomas Bock, artist, printmaker and photographer, is believed to have been born at Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, in 1790.
3 portraits in the collection
The Hon. Thomas Playford was a delegate from South Australia to the Constitutional Convention, Sydney, 1891.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Keneally (b.1935), author and republican activist, has achieved a considerable reputation for the breadth and accessibility of his writing, and his passion for causes about which many Australians feel deeply.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas J Washbourne worked as a photographer in Geelong and Melbourne in the 1860s and 70s.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas de Kessler, artist, came to Australia from Hungary in 1950. Born into an academic and creative family, he spoke several languages and had attended art school before arriving in Melbourne.
3 portraits in the collection
Thomas Clark, teacher and painter, arrived in Victoria from England in about 1852, having been anatomical draftsman at King's College London and headmaster of the Birmingham School of Design.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), Welsh traveller, antiquary, naturalist, and author, visited Joseph Banks in September 1771, shortly after Banks returned from his voyage with Cook on the Endeavour.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Purves (1909-1969), known as Tam, founded the Australian Galleries in Smith Street, Collingwood, Melbourne with his wife Anne in 1956.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) was one of the leading portrait painters of the Georgian era.
8 portraits in the collection
Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey (1836–1918), politician and governor, studied law and modern history at Oxford, but abandoned law for a career in politics two years after being called to the Bar.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Woolner, sculptor, studied first with the brothers Henry and William Behnes, painter and sculptor respectively, and later at the Royal Academy, at which he was to become professor of sculpture in his fifties.
5 portraits in the collection
A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.
1 portrait in the collection
A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.
1 portrait in the collection
Recorded 1967
Recorded 1967
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Diana de Kessler 2009
Artist David M Thomas lists some of the ideas and influences behind his video portraits.
The Knox's third son, Thomas Forster Knox (1849-1919) followed his father and older brother into business, and became prominent in the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Heathfield Carrick, miniature painter, grew up in Carlisle, where he trained and traded as a chemist, painting miniatures in his spare time.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1847) is one of the most intriguing and talented figures in colonial Australian art.
4 portraits in the collection
Thomas Herbert Maguire was a painter and lithographer working in London in the middle of the nineteenth century.
4 portraits in the collection
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) travelled to Australia as a member of the expedition conducted by Owen Stanley on the Rattlesnake between 1846 and 1850.
2 portraits in the collection
Thomas Foster Chuck (c. 1826-1898) specialised in photographing well-known colonists, many of whom featured amongst the 700 photographs in his huge mosaic The Explorers and Early Colonists of Victoria.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Lempriere came to Tasmania in 1822, received a land grant and became a founding shareholder of the Bank of Van Diemen's Land.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Thomas Sutcliffe Mort (1816-1878) was a merchant, shipbuilder, wool broker and pioneer of the technique of freezing meat for export.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Joseph Carr (1839–1917) was the second Catholic archbishop of Melbourne, the successor to James Alipius Goold.
2 portraits in the collection
Thomas Foster Chuck (1826-1898), photographer and entrepreneur, was born in London and arrived in Victoria in 1861.
4 portraits in the collection
Thomas Wentworth (Tom) Wills (1836–1880), is popularly thought of as the co-inventor of Australian Rules football.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mr Peter Kampfner 2013
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased 2015
Commissioned with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2002
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Desperately seeking Woolner medallions
John Thomas Lang (1876–1975) served two terms as premier of New South Wales in the 1920s and 1930s.
5 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter E.B. Mansell 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Thomas de Kessler 2001
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC 2013
Purchased 2017
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Thomas de Kessler 2001
As a convict Thomas Bock was required to sketch executed murders for science; as a free man, fashionable society portraits.
Purchased 2011
Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Recorded 1967
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased through the Foundation Acquisitions Fund 2015
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
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 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Purchased 2010
Purchased 2000
Purchased 2009
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007
Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.
Purchased 2006
Joanna Gilmour explores the life of a colonial portrait artist, writer and rogue Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.
Purchased with funds provided by the Ian Potter Foundation 2008
Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of Ross and Judy O'Connell 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gina and Ted Gregg 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Purchased 2010
Magda Keaney talks with Montalbetti+Campbell about their photographic portrait of Australian astronaut Andy Thomas.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Purchased 2000
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Elsie Martin 2000
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Commissioned 2006
Commissioned 2006
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007
Whether the result of misadventure or misdemeanour, many accomplished artists were transported to Australia where they ultimately left a positive mark on the history of art in this country.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2013
In 2006 the National Portrait Gallery acquired a splendid portrait of Victoria's first governor, Lieutenant Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe by Thomas Woolner.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Purchased 2015
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.
Purchased with funds provided by the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Canberra 2000
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby bring eloquent context to Ralph Heimans’ portraits of Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2007
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2007
Gift of Ronald A Walker 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
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.
Purchased 2018
Purchased 2019
Purchased 2004
Australian Galleries Director Stuart Purves tells the story of two portraits by John Brack.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gina and Ted Gregg 2010
Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.
Purchased 2009
Purchased 2009
Gift of the artist 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), potter and industrialist, became an apprentice to his potter brother, Thomas, at an early age.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
Daphne Mayo MBE (1895–1982), sculptor, was born in Sydney and moved to Brisbane as a child.
1 portrait in the collection
Lewis Pingo was an engraver at the Royal Mint. Pingo's father Thomas, an Italian-born medallist and die engraver, was one of the founders of the Royal Academy in 1768.
1 portrait in the collection
Kevin Weldon (1933-2023), businessman and philanthropist, spent his early years in Ingham in far north Queensland, where his father ran a car dealership.
1 portrait in the collection
Davida Allen is a Queensland artist. As a student at Brisbane's Stuartholme School in the 1960s she had Betty Churcher as an art teacher.
2 portraits in the collection
Paddy Jaminji (Jampin) (1912-1996), Kija visual artist, spent much of his life in and around his country near Bedford Downs station in WA.
1 portrait in the collection
For love, not money
Theresa Shepheard Mort (née Laidley, 1820-1869), colonial spouse, was one of eight children of civil servant James Laidley and his wife Eliza Jane (née Shepheard).
2 portraits in the collection
Gift of Kevin Weldon 2012
Noel 'Digger' McGrowdie (1920-1961), jockey, was born in Brisbane and educated at a Christian Brothers School in Toowoomba before being apprenticed in Brisbane at the age of fourteen.
1 portrait in the collection
An interview with former National Portrait Gallery Director, Andrew Sayers, who describes the portrait of Sir Henry Barkly by Thomas Clark.
John Williams (1796-1839), missionary, began his working life in 1810, apprenticed to an ironmonger, but in 1814 he underwent an Evangelical conversion and became a member of the Tabernacle Church (Calvinistic Methodist).
1 portrait in the collection
Brothers in harms
Christopher Morris studied photography at Griffith University in Brisbane in the mid 1990s, during which he photographed many of the leading names in contemporary music including U2, Oasis, Pearl Jam, The Sex Pistols and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
1 portrait in the collection
UK-born, Brisbane-based artist Tish Linehan (b. 1983) gained her undergraduate degree in visual arts from the Australian National University and subsequently completed a teaching qualification.
1 portrait in the collection
Amy Christine Rivett (1891–1962), doctor, contributed greatly to medicine and women's health.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2015
Max Dupain's unknown portrait subjects, phrenologist Madame Sibly, Indigenous-European relationships, Thomas Gainsborough and more.
Jun Chen (b. 1960), based in Brisbane, trained in traditional Chinese brush painting at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2005
Pamela MacFarlane was born in Dunedin, NZ and completed a Master's degree in Zoology at the University of Otago in the 1940s.
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
Purchased 2022
Sir Francis Forbes (1784–1841) was the first chief justice of the New South Wales Supreme Court.
1 portrait in the collection
Phil Manning celebrates a century of Brisbane photographic portraiture.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Tim Clark 2018
Francis Lymburner (1916-1972) was a Queensland-born artist who was educated at Brisbane Grammar and took art classes at Brisbane Technical College.
2 portraits in the collection
Using ochres collected on her country in Western Australia’s East Kimberley, Shirley Purdie’s self-portrait is a kaleidoscope of traditional Gija stories and Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) passed down to her.
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Joan Kerr (1938-2004), art historian, writer and lecturer, was responsible for several key reference texts on Australian art.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of the artist 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
This issue of Portrait Magazine features Bill Leak's portrait of Robert Hughes, Polly Borland's photographs, Bill Brandt, Andy Thomas, Tracey Moffatt and more.
Born: 1979, Brisbane
Works: Brisbane
Yanni Floros is an Adelaide based artist who trained at the National Art School in Sydney graduating as a sculpture major. Since then he has shown his work both locally and internationally in Berlin, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Harold Parker (1873-1962), sculptor, came to Brisbane with his English parents as a three-year old.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
This issue features suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Wainewright, Rick Amor, Chuck Close, Mick Dodson, Scott Redford, the National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition and more.
Jules Poret de Blosseville (1802-1833), geographer, navigator and explorer, was a junior officer on the Coquille, which, under the command of Louis Isidore Duperrey, conducted a voyage to Oceania and South America between 1822 and 1825.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Helge Jon Molvig was born and grew up in Newcastle, where he left school at thirteen and worked in a garage and at the steelworks.
6 portraits in the collection
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Gordon Shepherdson (b. 1934), painter, was a student of Molvig's and Sibley's in Brisbane.
1 portrait in the collection
Dylan Mooney, a proud Yuwi man from Mackay, Queensland, based in Meanjin/Brisbane, works across painting, printmaking, digital illustration and drawing, visually translating stories of resilience, survival, connection and love.
Leaders, painters, friends
In 1976, without having been blooded on the Sydney or Melbourne pub circuit, The Saints recorded a single – ‘(I’m) Stranded’ – earning them the distinction of releasing a punk single before The Sex Pistols did.
Jan Nelson was born in Melbourne. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1983 and has been exhibited her work in both solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia since that time including at the MCA, Sydney, National Gallery of Victoria, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane and the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide.
Purchased 2013
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased 2019
Richard 'Darby' McCarthy OAM (1945–2020), former jockey who rode in three Melbourne Cups and won more than 1000 races, is a proud descendant of the Mithaka and Goongurri people of south-west and central Queensland.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the family of FW Macpherson 2010
Little is known of John Chapman, who engraved fine allegorical subjects after the designs of J Smith and Richard Corbould and worked closely with Thomas Macklin on his Shakespeare series.
2 portraits in the collection
Commissioned 2007
Quentin Bryce AD CVO (b. 1942), academic, lawyer and community and human rights advocate, was the first woman to be appointed governor-general of Australia.
2 portraits in the collection
Known for his representational painting, Meriam and Yupungathi man Christopher Bassi, based in Meanjin/Brisbane, addresses issues surrounding cultural identity, alternative genealogies and colonial legacies.
My Le Thi is a Vietnamese-Australian singer, musician and artist. Born in Buon Ma Thout, South Vietnam in 1964, she migrated to Australia in late 1985 and settled in Brisbane.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the artist 2021
Charles Henry Theodore Costantini (also Constantine, Constantini and Costantine) was a Paris-born surgeon of Italian descent who was twice transported to the Australian colonies in the 1820s.
1 portrait in the collection
Poetic trio
Purchased 2004
Gift of the artist 2009
Nigel Brennan studied photography at Griffith University and works primarily in photo-documentary.
1 portrait in the collection
The Hon. Al Grassby AM (1926-2005) was born in Brisbane of a second-generation Spanish father and an Irish mother.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2019
Shirley Purdie (b. 1947) is a senior Gija artist at the Warmun Art Centre who has been painting for more than twenty years.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Gareth Mawson Thomas and Pamela Karran-Thomas of the Mawson family 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
The Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award is an annual event intended to extend traditional notions of portraiture and reflects the National Portrait Gallery's commitment to fostering emerging artists with an interest in contemporary technology.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010
Gift of Rosamond Shepherd 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Sidney Riley Studios operated concurrently at several Sydney locations (Balmain, Rozelle, Pitt St., Sydney, Marrickville & Chatswood), and in Brisbane, between 1911 and 1954.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gareth Mawson Thomas and Pamela Karran-Thomas of the Mawson family 2010
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Gift of Justice Ian Callinan 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Recorded 2021
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
François Jacques Dequevauviller was the son of the French engraver Nicolas-Barthelemy François Dequevauviller (1745–1807).
1 portrait in the collection
Wesley Enoch AM (b. 1969) is a theatre director and playwright and was the director of the Sydney Festival from 2017 to 2021.
1 portrait in the collection
Bessie Gibson (1868-1961), like Harold Parker, studied under Godfrey Rivers at the Brisbane Central Technical College, where she developed an interest in miniature painting.
1 portrait in the collection
Amandus Julius Fischer (1859-1948) began his art studies in Sydney before proceeding to the Westminster School of art in London, and the Académie Julian and the Atelier Colarossi in Paris.
1 portrait in the collection
William Francis King (1807-1873), aka 'The Flying Pieman', accomplished a series of bizarre athletic feats during the 1840s.
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
John Thomas Barber, army officer, insurer, miniaturist and philanthropist, took the additional name of Beaumont in 1812.
1 portrait in the collection
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
The basketballer Danny Morseu (b. 1958) was born on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.
1 portrait in the collection
Robert Thomas Carter (1843–1917) was a leading Sydney cabinetmaker and furniture warehouseman, and later an antique dealer.
2 portraits in the collection
Eleanor Wingate (née Rouse, 1813–1898) was the second youngest daughter of colonial public servant and landowner Richard Rouse (1774–1852) and his wife Elizabeth (née Adams, 1772–1849), who’d come to Sydney as free settlers in 1801.
1 portrait in the collection
William Yang's art is about the telling of stories, his work is an intriguing mixture of philosophy, autobiography, social history and documentary imbued with a sense of the artist's own curiosity, humanity and humour
Noel Stapleton (1927-2017) commercial artist, began his career in Brisbane in 1944.
1 portrait in the collection
Just after 10.00 o'clock on 3 December 1879, four prisoners were brought from their cells at Darlinghurst Gaol and placed in the dock of a courtroom heaving with agitated spectators
Bruce Postle began his photojournalism career at Queensland Country Life and the Brisbane Courier Mail.
6 portraits in the collection
Thea Astley (1925-2004), novelist, was born in Brisbane and studied arts at the University of Queensland before becoming a teacher.
1 portrait in the collection
Francis (Pat) Quinn (1914–2010), showman and hypnotist, was born in Christchurch, New Zealand.
2 portraits in the collection
Gift of Pamela Glasson 2009
Collected by Leila Haigh (nee Rouse)
Charles Ulm (1898-1934) began work as a clerk in a stockbroking office after he left school, but enlisted under a false identity in the 1st Battalion of the AIF just before his 16th birthday.
2 portraits in the collection
Fiona Foley (b.1964), Badtjala artist, activist, curator and writer, grew up on Fraser Island and in nearby Hervey Bay before moving south to study art at the East Sydney Technical College.
2 portraits in the collection
George Mealmaker (1768–1808), convict and activist, became involved in radical politics in his native Dundee in the 1780s.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006
Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi (c. 1932–2002) is a Warlpiri artist who was born in Yarrungkanyi in the Western Desert.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir William Beechey, portrait painter and pupil of Johann Zoffany, was greatly influenced by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018
William Robinson AO (b. 1936) is one of Australia's most distinguished and influential contemporary painters, known for his distinctive and prolific output as landscape painter in particular.
3 portraits in the collection
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
Born: 1957, Gympie, QLD
Works: Brisbane
Jill Hickson Wran AM (b. 1948) graduated from the University of Sydney and then worked for Qantas.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Luigi Schiavonetti, Italian reproductive engraver and etcher, studied art for several years before being employed by an engraver named Testolini to execute imitations of Bartolozzi's works, which Testolini passed off as his own.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir James Hardy OBE (1932-2023) was a wine industry executive, yachtsman and community leader.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Mr and Mrs James Bain 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Kristin Headlam, born in Launceston, completed a BA at the University of Melbourne in the 1970s and studied painting at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1980-1981.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased 1999
Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (1844–1900) was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria.
4 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 1999
Born: 1961, Hastings, New Zealand
Works: Brisbane
Tennyson's Enoch Arden was inspired by a story that Thomas Woolner passed on to him – but whose story and of whom?
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
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.
Esther Erlich (b. 1955), a Melbourne-based painter, has been exhibiting since the early 1980s, often with the Libby Edwards Galleries in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and the Barry Newton Gallery in Adelaide.
3 portraits in the collection
Ralph Heimans on his portraits, and features on Louis Kahan, Helena Rubinstein, Judy Cassab and Tasmanian convicts.
Peter Porter OAM (1929-2010), poet and critic, moved from Brisbane to London in 1951 at age 22.
2 portraits in the collection
As a young reporter for the Melbourne Age, John Hamilton (b.1940 UK, migrated to Aust.
1 portrait in the collection
Mia Boe is a Narrm/Melbourne-based artist known for her haunting and evocative painting practice, informed by her Butchulla and Burmese ancestry.
Hon Thomas Hughes AO KC (1923-2024), lawyer and former politician, was born in Sydney and educated at Riverview before serving in the RAAF during World War 2.
3 portraits in the collection
Aaron 'Tommy' Woodcock (1905-1985), horse strapper and trainer, was the son of a Cobb and Co driver and expressed his affinity with horses from an early age.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the artist 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Sir James Balderstone (1921-2014) was chairman of BHP from 1984 to 1989.
1 portrait in the collection
Lloyd Rees AC CMG (1895–1988), artist and teacher, studied art in Brisbane from 1910 to 1916, and in England and Europe in the early 1920s.
12 portraits in the collection
Gift of Mrs SM Asplin 2011
Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2018
Henry Wade (1810–1854), surveyor, was trained in surveying at Dublin College before being employed as a civilian assistant by the Royal Engineers Corps.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2015
John Hinde AM (1911-2006), film reviewer and reporter, had a couple of false starts in journalism before being hired by the ABC's news and current affairs department in 1939.
1 portrait in the collection
Laura Praeger (née Blundell) was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and was about twelve years old when her father brought his family to Australia, settling in Queensland.
1 portrait in the collection
Fred Schepisi AO (b. 1939), film producer and director, briefly trained to be a priest before working in advertising.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
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
The mane thing is trust
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Desire drives forbidden love
Gladys Hope Marks (1883–1970), university lecturer and women's rights activist, was born in Brisbane.
1 portrait in the collection
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.
Sir (Aynsley) Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) was an English conductor, composer and violinist.
2 portraits in the collection
Achilles Simonetti (1838-1900) was a sculptor. Born in Rome, the son of sculptor Louis Simonetti, he trained as a religious sculptor.
1 portrait in the collection
Fred Lowry (1836-1863) was a stockman before he turned to cattle and horse duffing.
1 portrait in the collection
Leslie Bowles (1885-1954), sculptor, was born in Sydney and began his studies in modelling and woodcarving at the Brisbane Technical College.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Samuel Walter Griffith (1845-1920), chief justice and premier, was born in Wales and came to Australia aged eight with his minister father and family.A top student, at the University of Sydney Griffith excelled at classics and mathematics; the Mort scholarship enabled him to travel to Europe.
2 portraits in the collection
James Heath commenced an apprenticeship with an engraver named Joseph Collyer at the age of fourteen.
2 portraits in the collection
Helen Grieve (1931–1981), child actress, was born in Sydney. Her first film role was in The Overlanders (1946), opposite Chips Rafferty.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998
Purchased 2009
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
Florrie Forde (1875–1940), singer and music hall performer, was born in Melbourne and was sixteen when she sang publicly for the first time, in Sydney, in late 1891.
9 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999
William John Pickett Bedford (1805–1869) was the eldest of three children of Anglican clergyman, William Bedford (1781–1852), and his wife, Eleanor, and came to Van Diemen’s Land with his family in 1823 following the appointment of his father to a chaplaincy in the colony.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the Mort family 2009
Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington (1860–1940) had served four years in the House of Commons before being appointed governor of Queensland in October 1895.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2014
Purchased 2007
Harold James Phillip 'Tiga' Bayles (1953–2016), a Birri Gubba Gungalu man, was a broadcaster and Aboriginal rights activist.
1 portrait in the collection
George Moore (1923-2008), champion jockey, was born in Mackay, Qld and was apprenticed in Brisbane in 1938.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004
Gift of the Sydney Airports Corporation 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
Talented wife for a talented husband
Elizabeth Sarah Ellen Carter (née Hill, 1845-1927) was one of the eight children born to Sydney cabinetmaker and undertaker John Hill jnr and his wife Elizabeth - the step-daughter of ex-convict boatman, John Cadman.
1 portrait in the collection
Sir Asher Joel (1912-1998), public relations entrepreneur and state politician, started out as a copyboy at Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.
1 portrait in the collection
Walala Tjapaltjarri (c. 1965–1975) and his family shot to fame in 1984 when they left their nomadic desert life and joined family in the community of Kiwirrkura in Western Australia.
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
Phyllis Shillito (1895-1980), designer and teacher, grew up in Yorkshire and trained and taught at Halifax Technical School before moving to teach design, craft and principles of art at Winchester School of Art and Liverpool City School of Art.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Born in Lincolnshire, Charles Hewitt (1837–1912) had begun working in Melbourne by 1860 and was one of the founding members of the Photographic Society of Victoria.
3 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2007
Gift of Dr Gene Sherman AM and Brian Sherman AM 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased with funds provided by Harold Mitchell AC 2015
Elizabeth Barden (b. 1965) grew up in Brisbane and gained a diploma in art teaching from Queensland University of Technology in 1985.
1 portrait in the collection
Billy Slater (b. 1983), rugby league footballer, has played for Melbourne Storm since the beginning of his career in 2003.
1 portrait in the collection
Maude Rose ‘Lores’ Bonney MBE AM (1897-1994), aviatrix, grew up in Melbourne and attended a German finishing school before marrying a Queensland leather-goods manufacturer in 1917.
2 portraits in the collection
Gift of Barbara Blackman 2004
Purchased 2018
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
Dadang Christanto (b. 1957), artist, was born into an Indonesian family of Chinese descent in Tegal, a small village in Central Java, Indonesia.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2010
Nam Le (b. 1978), writer, came to Australia as a baby with his Vietnamese refugee parents.
1 portrait in the collection
Queenie McKenzie (c. 1930–1998) was a prominent Gija artist in the East Kimberley painting movement.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Arthur Thomas 'A T' Woodward (1865–1943), painter and art scholar, was born in Birmingham, England.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift in memory of Frederick John Cato Kumm 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
George Richmond, son of the miniature painter Thomas Richmond, grew up in London, took early artistic instruction from his father and enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools in 1824.
1 portrait in the collection
Artist Henry Mundy arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1831 and took up a position as teacher of drawing, French and music at Ellinthorp Hall, a school near Ross established ‘with a view to the improvement of Young Ladies’.
4 portraits in the collection
Gift of Danina Dupain Anderson 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Near-naked subversion
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rex Dupain 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rex Dupain 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gina and Ted Gregg 2010
John Hillcoat (b. 1960), filmmaker, was born in Brisbane and grew up in Canada, the USA and Europe.
1 portrait in the collection
Li Cunxin AO (b. 1961) is the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2009
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
A penny for their thoughts
Andrew Sibley (1933–2015), painter and teacher, is known for his figurative paintings, landscapes and abstract works.
20 portraits in the collection
Francis Russell Nixon (1803-1879) photographer, artist and Anglican clergyman, arrived in Hobart in 1843 to take up the role of Bishop of Tasmania.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
A meeting of minds
Purchased 2012
Purchased 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
Hon Joh Bjelke-Petersen KCMG, longest-serving Premier of Queensland from 1968 until 1987 was born in New Zealand in 1911.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Bernard King (1934–2002), chef and television personality, grew up on a farm at Maleny in Queensland and appeared in his first talent quest at the age of eight.
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Alan Foulkes in memory of Mark Graham Cleghorn 2012
Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2014
Peter Hudson (b. 1950), is a landscape and portrait painter who lives and works in Maleny, Queensland.
5 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2008
Sir Henry Wylie Norman (1826–1904), governor and army officer, was born in London, the son of a merchant who conducted his business chiefly in India and the Caribbean.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2021
Purchased 2021
Gift of the artist 2012
Robyn Davidson (b. 1950), writer, attended a Brisbane boarding school before moving to Sydney, where she lived a loosely bohemian lifestyle.
2 portraits in the collection
Brisbane-based Marian Drew (b. 1960) is a photographic artist and Adjunct Associate Professor in Photography at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Lindy Lee AO (b. 1954) is one of Australia's foremost contemporary artists.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
Wesley Stacey (1941–2023), photographer, was an apprentice silk screener and studied drawing and design at East Sydney Technical College in the early 1960s before working as a graphic designer and photographer in Sydney and London.
3 portraits in the collection
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
The late Georgian and early Victorian working classes often bought their food in ale-houses, chop-houses and ‘penny pie shops’, or purchased their meals day after day in the streets.
Purchased 2009
Gift of Mrs Kate Hodgkinson 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Anthony Mundine (b. 1975), Bundjalung boxer and former rugby league player, was born in Newtown in Sydney's inner south and began his career playing league for Hurstville United.
2 portraits in the collection
Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892), naturalist, anatomist and palaeontologist, was born in Lancaster and apprenticed to surgeon-apothecaries there before completing his studies in medicine in Edinburgh and London.
1 portrait in the collection
Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2016
Gift of the Wade and Hannah families 2013
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004
George Fetting (b. 1964) is a Sydney-based photographer specialising in portrait, travel and editorial work.
8 portraits in the collection
Gift of the artist 2019
The self-portrait enables students to explore emerging and changing aspects of their own identity, their sense of self, their place in the world, their experience of being human
Purchased 2008. The original frame for this work was donated to the National Portrait Gallery of Australia by the National Gallery of Victoria 2009.
Purchased 2008. The original frame for this work was donated to the National Portrait Gallery of Australia by the National Gallery of Victoria 2009.
Noel McKenna (b. 1956), artist, is best known for his spare linear style and paintings of everyday scenarios, often featuring animals and interiors.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013
An interview with the photographer.
Lady Hay, née Chalmers (c. 1806-1892) was reported at the time of her death to have been about ten years older than Hay.
1 portrait in the collection
Bequest of John J Holden 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2009
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
Purchased 2019
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Ethel Anderson (née Mason, 1883-1958), writer and artist, was an important figure in the Sydney modern art scene of the 1920s and 30s.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Leisel Jones OAM (b. 1985) is the first Australian swimmer to have competed at four Olympic Games and is one of world swimming's greatest ever breaststroke competitors.
2 portraits in the collection
Gift of Robert Rosen 2012
Brian Dunlop studied at East Sydney Technical College and won the Le Gay Brereton Prize for Drawing while still a student.
7 portraits in the collection
Professor John Shine AC (b. 1946), biochemist and philanthropist, was born in Brisbane and completed his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at the Australian National University in Canberra in the 1970s.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family 2018
Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2010
Charles Abraham, son of a London architect, trained at the Royal Academy schools under the sculptor Sierier, and for a further three years in Paris and Rome.
1 portrait in the collection
Going around a gallery with a child, we point to a painting of a dog and brightly ask ‘What’s that?’ If they don’t say ‘A dog’, we tell them that’s what it is. We don’t say it’s a shape inscribed by an artist that’s popularly understood to signify a dog. That’d only serve to foster a smarty-pants.
Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018
Gift of the artist 1999
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Experience the artistic clout of Brook Andrew’s portraits of Marcia Langton AM and Anthony Mundine.
Wilfrid John Peisley, born in Bathurst, won a number of prizes at regional shows before gaining a scholarship to the East Sydney Technical College at the age of seventeen.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2021
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Barbara Blackman 2009
Rt Hon John Adrian Louis Hope KT GCMG GCVO PC, 7th Earl of Hopetoun (1860–1908) was the first governor general of Australia.
3 portraits in the collection
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott AM (1935–2013) was a self-described potter, whose international reputation was built on her exquisite still-life assemblages of refined, spare vessels in subtle colours and shapes.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
June Dally-Watkins OAM (1927–2020), model, deportment icon and entrepreneur, grew up on a property at Watsons Creek in the New England district of New South Wales.
3 portraits in the collection
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018
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
Hugh Reskymer 'Kym' Bonython AC DFC AFC (1920-2011), company director, art dealer, jazz authority, music promoter and speedway entrepreneur, was one of the most significant collectors and dealers of contemporary Australian art in the post-war period.
2 portraits in the collection
Gift of the artist 1998. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Lionel Fogarty (b. 1958), Yugambeh/Kudjela poet and activist, was born at Barambah, the Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve, near Murgon, Queensland.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Little Darlings is for primary and secondary students, with four separate categories across Kindergarten to Year 12. Responding to the theme ‘Me and my place’, students painted, drew, photographed, printed or combined all of these to make their portrait.
Purchased 2001
Purchased 2013
Purchased 2021
Cressida Campbell AM (b. 1960), artist, has worked for decades in a studio at her home in Bronte, Sydney.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2004
Barbara Blackman AO (b. 1928), writer, poet and arts patron, was only fifteen when the ABC Weekly published one of her poems.
5 portraits in the collection
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 the artist 2004
Purchased with funds provided by James Bain AM and Janette Bain 2010
Unique in the world, perhaps, is a bronze sculpture that fuses the age-old human portrait bronze tradition, and the later genre of the bronze pug figurine: that’d be William Robinson’s Self-portrait with pug.
Tracey Moffatt AO (b. 1960) is an artist whose work reflects on issues including race, childhood trauma, gender and popular culture.
12 portraits in the collection
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
William Kinghorne (1796-1878) came to the colonies from Scotland some time before 1824.
1 portrait in the collection
Kerry Stokes AC (b. 1940), businessman and philanthropist, was born John Patrick Alford in Melbourne.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Jozef Vissel 2015
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
Henry (Thomas Henry) Kendall (1839-1882) was once regarded as the finest poet Australia had produced.
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.
Douglas Annand (1903–1976), graphic designer and artist, moved to Sydney from Brisbane in 1930.
2 portraits in the collection
Will Huxley grew up in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, and Garrett Huxley was raised on the Gold Coast, Queensland.
3 portraits in the collection
Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2008
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased 2015
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Harold Blair AO (1924–1976), singer and Indigenous advocate, spent his youth on the Purga Mission, and began singing in local concerts on the canefields in the Childers area.
1 portrait in the collection
Commissioned with funds provided by the Patrick Corrigan Portrait Commission Series 2018
Gift of Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Glenn McGrath AM (b. 1970), philanthropist and former Test cricketer, is one of international cricket's greatest ever fast bowlers.
1 portrait in the collection
Thomas Coleman Durkin trained at the Williamstown School of Design and started work in Melbourne as an apprentice to an engraver and then a jeweller.
27 portraits in the collection
Gift of Brook Andrew in memory of Emmaline Rose Charnock 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of the artist 2010
Michael Zavros (b. 1974) graduated from Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1996.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014
Purchased 2015
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Sydney Airports Corporation 2001
Heidi 'Bide' Middleton AM (b. 1971) and Sarah-Jane 'Sass' Clarke AM (b.
1 portrait in the collection
Sarah-Jane 'Sass' Clarke AM (b. 1974) and Heidi 'Bide' Middleton AM (b.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2003
'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.
The Darling Portrait Prize is a biennial national prize for Australian portrait painting honouring the legacy of Mr L Gordon Darling AC CMG.
Gift of the artist 2020. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2020. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Gift of the artist 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2003
Purchased 2018
Maurice Appleby Felton (1803-1842) arrived in Sydney with his wife and four children in late 1839 as surgeon to the immigrant ship the Royal Admiral.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
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
Rodney Hall OAM (b. 1935), writer, came to Australia in 1947 and settled in Brisbane.
2 portraits in the collection
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.
Richard Gardiner Casey, Baron Casey of Berwick, Victoria and the City of Westminster KG GCMG CH (1890-1976), politician and statesman, was born in Brisbane and educated in Melbourne and at Cambridge.
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
Ian Fairweather (1891-1974), painter, grew up in Scotland, where he trained as an army officer.
1 portrait in the collection
Garrett Huxley (b. 1973) was born in Melbourne and raised on the Gold Coast.
3 portraits in the collection
Paula Dawson AM (b. 1954), artist and university lecturer, is an internationally recognised pioneer in the field of holography.
1 portrait in the collection
Will Huxley (b. 1982) was born in Bath, England, emigrating with his family at the age of seven to grow up in the suburbs of Perth.
3 portraits in the collection
Michael Riley (1960–2004), a Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi photographer, filmmaker and video-artist, was one of Australia's most influential Aboriginal contemporary artists.
15 portraits in the collection
Stephen Page AO (b. 1965), Nunukul dancer and choreographer, has been artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre since 1991.
2 portraits in the collection
Heather McKay AO MBE (b. 1941), squash champion, dominated the game worldwide for sixteen years and was the first to be inducted into the Women's International Squash Players Association Hall of Fame.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased with funds provided by Alan Dodge AM and Neil Archibald 2021
Dave Tice (b. 1950) was the lead singer for the trailblazing Australian hard rock band Buffalo.
1 portrait in the collection
Thousand mile stare provides a unique portrait of people of rural Australia
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Russell Page (1968–2002), choreographer, dancer and actor, was from the Nunukul (Noonuccal) people and the Munaldjali clan of the Yugambeh people of south-east Queensland.
5 portraits in the collection
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.
Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018
Michelle Simmons AO (b. 1967), 2018 Australian of the Year, is a pioneer in atomic electronics and quantum computing.
1 portrait in the collection
Miriam Hyde AO OBE (1913-2005), composer, recitalist, teacher, examiner, poet, lecturer and writer of numerous articles for music journals, studied first with her mother and then with William Silver at the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide.
1 portrait in the collection
Tim Fairfax AC (b.1946), company director, grazier and philanthropist, is a founding benefactor of the National Portrait Gallery and a former chair of its board of directors.
1 portrait in the collection
Jeremiah Ware (1792–1878) arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1822 with his wife, Mary (née Brooks, c.
1 portrait in the collection
Jeremiah Ware (1792–1878) arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1822 with his wife, Mary (née Brooks, c.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the Estate of Nancy Wiseman 2007
Gift of the artists 2005
Purchased 2018
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
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.
Purchased 2002
Dr Arthur Martin a’Beckett FRCS (1812-1871) surgeon and New South Wales parliamentarian studied at London University from 1831 before undertaking a residency in Paris, centre for innovation in the practice of hygiene, pathological anatomy and physiopathology.
2 portraits in the collection
Sisters Bronte Campbell (b. 1994) and Cate Campbell (b. 1992), champion swimmers, were born in Malawi to South African parents, and took up competitive swimming after the family settled in Brisbane in 2001.
1 portrait in the collection
Sisters Bronte Campbell (b. 1994) and Cate Campbell (b. 1992), champion swimmers, were born in Malawi to South African parents, and took up competitive swimming after the family settled in Brisbane in 2001.
1 portrait in the collection
Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE (1915–2009), aviatrix, decided she wanted to be a pilot when, at age eight, she saw a plane make an emergency landing on a beach near her home.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Gift of the Margaret Olley Art Trust 2003
Angus Trumble salutes the glorious portraiture of Sir Thomas Lawrence.
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
Ben Quilty (b. 1973), painter, gained bachelor’s degrees in painting and visual communication at Sydney College of the Arts and the University of Western Sydney.
1 portrait in the collection
Malcolm (Mal) Meninga AM (b. 1960) is one of Australia’s most lauded rugby league players.
2 portraits in the collection
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
Purchased 2022
Angus Trumble (1964-2022) was born and raised in Melbourne. He studied Fine Arts and History at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1986.
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rob and Paula McLean 2011
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
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
Purchased with funds provided by James Bain AM and Janette Bain 2010
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (1813-c. 1848) went to school and university in Germany but the range of his interests was such that he never actually graduated (he was later called Dr Leichhardt in recognition of his broad scholarship).
1 portrait in the collection
Rick Amor (b. 1948) is a Victorian-based painter, printmaker and sculptor.
27 portraits 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.
Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.
Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM (b. c 1947) is a senior Tjanpi Desert Weaver with work spanning across printmaking, ceramics and fibre-based work.
1 portrait in the collection
The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.
Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018
The National Portrait Gallery is pleased to announce its winter exhibition is So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history. It will open to the public from 29 June 2018.
In February 2003 the National Portrait Gallery Circle of Friends brought Sir Robert Strong to Australia to present a series of lectures entitled The Artists & The Banquet- A History of Dining, which focused on the links between gardens and table decoration from the Renaissance to the Victorian Era.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
David Strachan (1919–1970), painter and printmaker, was educated at Geelong Grammar School and then studied art at the Slade School in London.
2 portraits in the collection
David Solkin ponders the provocations and inspirations of the enigmatic Thomas Gainsborough.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
John Connell (c. 1759–1849), free settler, merchant and landowner, came to New South Wales aboard the Earl Cornwallis, which arrived in Sydney in June 1801.
1 portrait in the collection
Brook Andrew, Marcia Langton and Anthony Mundine.
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.
The Hon Bill Hayden AC (1933‒2023) was Governor-General of Australia from 1989 to 1996 and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983.
1 portrait in the collection
Commissioned with funds provided by Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018
Lecture by Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, given at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra on 28 April 2006.
Mortimer Lewis (1796–1879), surveyor and architect, and his wife Elizabeth (née Clements, c.
1 portrait in the collection
Mortimer Lewis (1796–1879), surveyor and architect, and his wife Elizabeth (née Clements, c.
1 portrait in the collection
Introduction The National Portrait Gallery’s photographic exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus explores various interpretations of Australian sporting men and women.
Matthias (or Matthew) Darly, printseller, engraver, caricaturist and furniture designer, served an apprenticeship to a clockmaker before opening a print shop in London in the 1740s.
3 portraits in the collection
Ten women artists explore the possibilities of portraiture as a contemporary art form; and reinterpret and reimagine Australian history in the Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.
Nicholas Harding (1956–2022) was one of Australia's most highly regarded artists, known for his portraits and drawings, and his light-filled, vigorously painted images of the bush and the coast.
5 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005
These full-length figures in watercolour, gouache and pencil date mostly from the 1820s, and almost all come from the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart.
Michael Desmond reveals the origins of composite portraits and their evolution in the pursuit of the ideal.
Although perceived to be a recent phenomenon, the 'Aussie invasion' of Hollywood can actually be traced as far back as the early 1900s
Robert ‘Bob’ Jenyns (1944-2015) grew up in Victoria and gained his diploma in art from the Caulfield Institute of Technology in 1964.
1 portrait in the collection
James Richard Vickery OBE (1902-1997), food scientist, saw the field of his life’s research grow from non-existence to world recognition.
1 portrait in the collection
In her self-portrait, Tracey Moffatt presents herself as her work.
Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.
Gift of Leo Schofield AM 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.
William Paul Dowling (1824–1877) is thought to have studied art in his native Dublin before settling in London, where he worked as a draughtsman while trying to establish himself as a portraitist.
1 portrait in the collection
Michael Desmond discusses the portrait of Senator Neville Bonner by Robert Campbell Jnr.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the CSIRO Agriculture and Food Division 2017
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Born in Manila in 1972, Alfredo Esquillo Jr majored in painting at University of Santo Thomas.
Horatio Spencer Howe Wills (1811–1861), pastoralist, politician and newspaper proprietor, was born in Sydney, several months after the death of his father, Edward Spencer Wills, a merchant and shipowner who'd arrived in New South Wales under a life sentence for highway robbery in 1799.
2 portraits in the collection
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.
James McCabe provides proof that hanging wasn’t necessarily a fate reserved for the perpetrators of murder and other deeds of darkest hue.
Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.
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.
The National Portrait Gallery this week launches an online exhibition of Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe to coincide with Reconciliation Week.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Gift of Claudia Hyles, Dr Christiane Lawin-Bruessel, Gwenda Matthews, Gael Newton, Anne O'Hehir, Susan Smith and Dominic Thomas in memory of our friend, Robyn Beeche 2016
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.
This exhibition features new works from ten women artists reinterpreting and reimagining elements of Australian history, enriching the contemporary narrative around Australia’s history and biography, reflecting the tradition of storytelling in our country.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
Beyond the centenary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, a number of other notable anniversaries converge this year. Waterloo deserves a little focussed consideration, for in the decades following 1815 numerous Waterloo and Peninsular War veterans came to Australia.
The National Portrait Gallery recently announced the finalists for the Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award 2013.
The acquisition of the ivory miniatures of Mortimer and Mrs Lewis.
Gift of the artist 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of James Semple Kerr 2004
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Scott Redford discusses his dynamic portrait commission of motorcycling champion and 2008 Young Australian of the Year Casey Stoner.
Commissioned with funds from the Patrick Corrigan Portrait Commission Series 2018
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Arnold Shore, a lifelong inhabitant of Melbourne, was apprenticed to a stained glass and leadlight company called Brooks, Robinson soon after leaving school at the age of twelve.
2 portraits in the collection
The story behind Rick Amor's portrait of Professor Peter Doherty.
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
Magda Keaney examines the 123 Faces project by Simon Obarzanek.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009
Krysia Kitch celebrates Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
Emily Casey takes in Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait, Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life of colonial women Lady Ellen Stirling, Eliza Darling, Lady Eliza Arthur, Elizabeth Macquarie and Lady Jane Franklin.
Two lively portrait photographs reflect the agility of their subjects: world champion Australian sportsmen Lionel Rose and Anthony Mundine.
The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825.
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.
I had been watching Agnes with intrigue, her face and profile were so mesmerizing. On our final day together I pulled her aside and convinced her that she had such an amazing face that I needed to get a photograph for myself. It was very spontaneous in that I decided quickly how it would best look and shot it in only two frames.
Dr Christopher Chapman explores the symbolism in the portrait commission of Marcia Langton by Brook Andrew.
Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018
Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018
The National Portrait Gallery acquired the self-portrait by Grace Cossington Smith in 2003.
Anna Frances Walker (1830–1913), botanical artist and collector, was one of the thirteen children of Thomas Walker, a high-ranking colonial public servant, and his wife Anna Elizabeth, the daughter of merchant and landowner John Blaxland.
1 portrait in the collection
Biographies of participants in the Writing lives, revealing lives forum.
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
The National Portrait Gallery has acquired an evocative depiction of soldier Peter Cosgrove by the Victorian-based painter, printmaker and sculptor Rick Amor.
Christopher Chapman talks with Scott Redford about his character Reinhardt Dammn.
Angus Trumble reveals the complex technical mastery behind a striking recent acquisition, Henry Bone’s enamel portrait of William Manning.
Glenn McGrath makes a strong impact on the English batsmen and the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.
Michael Desmond profiles the Australian songwriter and performer Neil Murray and his contribution to Australian music.
Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.
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.
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.
The theme for the National Portrait Gallery's eighth exhibition of student portraiture was The Journey.
A new painting by Jiawei Shen captures the vision and resolve of the Gallery's founder, L. Gordon Darling AC CMG.
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.”
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.
About the exhibition curator Claire Roberts, and writers Eugene Wang and Zhang Letian.
Natural light and human proportions – the design by Johnson Pilton Walker
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 Sarah Engledow tells the story of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee portrait by Australian artist Ralph Heimans.
Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.
Michael Desmond explores what makes a portrait subject significant.
The life and achievements of Sir Edward Holden, who is represented in the portrait collection by a bust created by Leslie Bowles.
Emma Kindred looks at the career of Joan Ross, whose work subverts colonial imagery and its legacy with the clash of fluorescent yellow.
A remarkable undated drawing by Edward Lear (1812–88) blends natural history and whimsy.
A portrait of Australian rugby great, Dr Mark Loane AM MBBS FRANZO FRACS, is the latest addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. The work is the final in a series of three commissioned portraits of Australian rugby luminaries funded by Gallery benefactor, Mr Patrick Corrigan AM.
Andrew Sayers outlines the highlights of the National Portrait Gallery's display of portrait sculpture.
Exploring the photographs of Martin Schoeller, Michael Desmond delves into the uneasy pact that exists between celebrity and the camera.
Jane Raffan asks do clothes make the portrait, and can the same work with a new title fetch a better price?
David Ward writes about the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington.
The second row of paintings recall stories relating to specific sites, experiences and activities.
Sarah Engledow on Messrs Dobell and MacMahon and the art of friendship.
Joanna Gilmour travels through time to explore the National Portrait Gallery London’s masterpieces in Shakespeare to Winehouse.
Joanna Gilmour on Tom Durkin playing with Melbourne's manhood.
Gareth Knapman explores the politics and opportunism behind the portraits of Tasmania’s Black War.
Joanna Gilmour delves into a collection display that celebrates the immediacy and potency of drawing as an art form in its own right.
Karina Dias Pires shares the stories behind her portraits of women artists in their creative spaces.
In recent years I have become fascinated by the so-called Sydney Cove Medallion (1789), a work of art that bridges the 10,000-mile gap between the newly established penal settlement at Port Jackson and the beating heart of Enlightenment England.
To celebrate his family bicentenary, Malcolm Robertson looks at the portraiture legacy left by his ancestors.
Christopher Chapman considers photographer Rozalind Drummond's portrait of author Nam Le.
Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.
In 2000, Barbara Blackman donated a portrait of her close friends - poet Judith Wright, her husband Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith - painted by Charles Blackman.
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.
Christopher Chapman delights in the intimacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's photography
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.
Jose Legaspi was born in 1959 in Manila. He achieved degrees in zoology and biology before turning to fine arts in the mid-1980s.
Former National Portrait Gallery Curator Magda Keaney was a member of the selection panel of the Schwepes Photographic Portrait Prize 2004 at the National Portrait Gallery London.
Portraits of philanthropists in the collection honour their contributions to Australia and acknowledge their support of the National Portrait Gallery.
Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.
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.
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.
Michael Wardell on Chrys Zantis’ Ora.
Despite once expressing a limited interest in the self portrait, the idea of it has figured strongly in much of Tracey Moffatt's work and has done so in some of her most distinctive and compelling images.
John Elliott talks about his photographic portrait practice, including his iconic image of Slim Dusty arm-in-arm with Dame Edna Everage.
Malcolm Robertson tells the family history of one of Australia's earliest patrons of the arts, his Scottish born great great great grandfather, William Robertson.
The National Portrait Gallery's acquisition of the portrait of Edward John Eyre by pioneering English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
Cartoonist Michael Leunig's insights into the human condition and current affairs have become famous Australia-wide.
The Board oversees the Gallery's strategic directions, objectives and governance.
The death of a gentlewoman is shrouded in mystery, a well-liked governor finds love after sorrow, and two upright men become entangled in the historical record.
Representations of the inhabitants of the new world expose the complexities of the colonisers' intentions.
The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.
Gideon Haigh discusses portraits of Australian cricketers from the early 20th century
Inga Walton sheds light on a portraiture collection usually only seen by students and teachers at Melbourne University.
Alistair McGhie reminisces about three Australian rugby greats commissioned for the Portrait Gallery collection by Patrick Corrigan AM.
Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.
Penelope Grist unpacks photographs by David Parker, who captured the phenomenal emergence of the 1970s and 80s Melbourne music scene.
Ashleigh Wadman rediscovers the Australian characters represented with a kindly touch by the British portrait artist Leslie Ward for the society magazine Vanity Fair.
One night in the spring of 1970 in an old house in Whale Beach, north of Sydney, John Witzig, Albe Falzon and David Elfick put together the first issue of Tracks, playing Neil Young’s album Harvest over and over again as they pasted up galleys of type.
Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the gift of two striking paintings by the Australian artist Ken Done AM.
Joanna Gilmour examines the prolific output of Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, and discovers the risk of taking a portrait at face value.
Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.
In his speech launching the new National Portrait Gallery building on 3 December 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set the Gallery in a national and historical context.
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.
Karen Vickery delights in a thespian thread of the Australian yarn.
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.
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.
Inga Walton on the brief but brilliant life of Hugh Ramsay.
Roger Benjamin explores the intriguing union of Lina Bryans and Alex Jelinek.
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.
Krysia Kitch reviews black chronicles at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Fiona Gruber investigates the work of Australian painter Kristin Headlam.
Penelope Grist explores the United Nations stories in the Gallery’s collection.
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.
Penelope Grist and Rebecca Ray talk to the artists in Portrait23: Identity about transcending modes of portraiture.
Sharon Peoples contemplates costumes and the construction of identity.
Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.
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 explores the fact and fictions surrounding the legendary life of Irish-born dancer Lola Montez.
Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.
Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture.
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.
Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.
How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be
The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.
Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.
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.
How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.
Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.
Joanna Gilmour profiles Violet Teague, whose sophisticated works hid her originality and non-conformity in plain sight.
John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.
Anne Sanders celebrates the cinematic union of two pioneering australian women.
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
Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of convict-turned-artist William Buelow Gould.
Where do we draw a line between the personal and the historical? Although she died in Melbourne in 1975, when I was not quite eleven years old, I have the vividest memories of my maternal grandmother Helen Borthwick.
Sarah Engledow looks at three decades of Nicholas Harding's portraiture.
Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.
Inner Worlds features the recently commissioned portrait of world-renowned philosopher of consciousness David Chalmers by Melbourne-based artist Nick Mourtzakis.
Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be
Dr Christopher Chapman NPG Curator of Inner Worlds explains the development of an exhibition that spans from Surrealism to contemporary art.
Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.