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A potpourri of portraits

Archie 100 curator (and detective) Natalie Wilson’s nationwide search for Archibald portraits unearthed the fascinating stories behind some long-lost treasures.

What price self?

Jane Raffan investigates auction sales of self portraits nationally and internationally.

Uncommon Australians

Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.

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.

The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush

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.

The Vanity model

Vanity Fair Editor David Friend describes how the rebirth of the magazine sated our desire for access into the lives of celebrities and set the standard for the new era of portrait photography.

Progressive pictures

Athol Shmith’s photographs contributed to the emergence of a new vision of Australian womanhood.

Regarding Henrys

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

Portrait Donors

The more things change...

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.

The Bare story

Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be

Christmas Island

This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.