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Give me five

National Portrait Gallery director Karen Quinlan AM nominates her quintet of favourites from the collection, with early twentieth-century ‘selfies’ filling the roster.

Spring exhibition program

The following on-line and physical exhibitions are planned to open at the National Portrait Gallery in coming months. For those who can’t travel at present, selected works from all exhibitions will be included online

Hide/Seek

David Ward writes about the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington.

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.

The considered life

Andrew Sayers asks whether a portrait can truly be the examination of a life.

Announcing... Jonathan Jones Bogong Cluster: Physically distant, socially connected

A new light installation by Jonathan Jones reflects on the importance of community through the lens of his Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi heritage, whilst also acting as a prompt for gallery visitors to maintain social distancing.

Inside outside

Michael Desmond explores the portraiture of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Modern Australian Women

Close contemporaries, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith were frequently sources of inspiration and irritation to each other. 

200 Years of Portraiture

To celebrate his family bicentenary, Malcolm Robertson looks at the portraiture legacy left by his ancestors.

Giving and getting

The exhibition Portraits for Posterity celebrates gifts to the Gallery, of purchases made with donated funds, and testifies to the generosity and community spirit of Australians.

Fits of delicacy and despair

Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.

Herra Pahlasari

At the time of Herra Pahlasari’s birth in 1978, her academic parents were living in Canberra.

Portrait Donors

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.

The last word

David Hansen’s tribute to his close friend, prince of words and former National Portrait Gallery director, the late Angus Trumble.

Where the wild things are

Michael Desmond explores the complex portrait of Dr Bob Brown by Harold 'The Kangaroo' Thornton.