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In the thick of it

Projecting the splendour of the empire, and the resolve of its subjects, the bust of William Birdwood keeps a stiff upper lip in the National Portrait Gallery.

Australians in Hollywood

The exhibition Australians in Hollywood celebrated the achievements of Australians in the highly competitive American film industry.

Some prime ministers

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

Portrait Donors

The personal and the historical

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.

Past present

Krysia Kitch celebrates Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

20 20

Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Friends and Acquaintances

Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.

Out of the shadows

Joanna Gilmour profiles the life and times of the shutter sisters May and Mina Moore.

Lucy Culliton

Most well-regarded pictures of chickens show them dead. A reliable way to tell if a chicken in a painting is dead is to check if it’s hanging upside down, because unlike, say, cockatoos, chickens don’t practise inversion for enjoyment in life.

Noel McKenna

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.

20/20 launch speech

Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

Regarding Henrys

Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.

Painting writing

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

All the way with K of K

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

Everybody, look serious

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