Search / william dobell

To the end of the earth

The portrait of Dr. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster from 1780, is one of the oldest in the NPG's collection.

Anatomist's eye

Robert Hannaford has completed around 400 portraits over the span of his career. 

Corporate Characters

A collection of thirty-seven caricatures by the artist Joe Greenberg capture the heroes and villians of Australian business in the 1980s.

First encounters

Representations of the inhabitants of the new world expose the complexities of the colonisers' intentions.

A new perspective

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.

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.

The Philosophy of Teapots and Ducks

Cartoonist Michael Leunig's insights into the human condition and current affairs have become famous Australia-wide.

Maria Caroline Brownrigg

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

Expect the unexpected

Joanna Gilmour revels in accidental artist Charles Rodius’ nineteenth century renderings of Indigenous peoples.

I'm not there

Reflections

All that fall: Sacrifice, life and loss in the First World War exhibition co-curators Dr Anne Sanders and Dr Christopher Chapman reflect on the evolution of the Gallery’s Anzac Centenary exhibition.

Peripheral vision

Aimee Board chats to emerging photographer Charles Dennington.

The Dissecting Room

Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture. 

Reveries

The exhibition Reveries: Photography and mortality is a powerful display which brings together images that depict the last phase of people's lives.

Melbourne experience

Diana Warnes explores the lives of Hal and Katherine 'Kate' Hattam through their portraits painted by Fred Williams and Clifton Pugh.

History

How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be