- About us
- Support the Gallery
- Venue hire
- Publications
- Research library
- Organisation chart
- Employment
- Contact us
- Make a booking
- Onsite programs
- Online programs
- School visit information
- Learning resources
- Little Darlings
- Professional learning
Joanna Gilmour discusses the role of the carte de visite in portraiture’s democratisation, and its harnessing by Victoria, the world’s first media monarch.
Esther Erlich’s portrait of Lady McMahon.
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.
Michael Desmond looks at the history of the Vanity Fair magazine in conjunction with the exhibition Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008
Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.
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.
Joanna Gilmour on the exuberant union of fashion pioneers Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson, captured in luminescent splendour by artist Carla Fletcher.
Inga Walton delves into the bohemian group of artists and writers who used each other as muses and transformed British culture.
Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’.
Peter Wilmoth’s boy-journalist toolkit for antagonising an Australian political giant.
Traversing paint and pixels, Inga Walton examines portraits of select women in Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits.
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.
Angus Trumble reflects on the force of nature that was Helena Rubinstein.
Jenny Gall delves into Starstruck to celebrate some of Australian cinema’s iconic women.
Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.
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.