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. The NPG also runs popular Virtual Tours every Tuesday (see below) as well as a range of other activities via PortraitureComesHome on the NPG website, portrait.gov.au. Included here is long-time favourite, Portrait Stories, a series of over 100 mini-movies showcasing the collaboration between portrait artists and their subjects.
Australian Love Stories
An amorous online adventure launched August 15th
Australian Love Stories is an interactive storybook of Australian devotion, family ties, close friendships, passion and lust, not your usual online exhibition experience, these fascinating portraits and stories become a choose-your-own adventure, where visitors can navigate their way through the portraits and engage with the stories behind them. At the end they are given their own ‘love profile’, based on how and where their love interests led them.
Featuring famous figures from the NPG collection, Australian Love Stories explores universal themes encompassed by ‘love’ and offers an exhaustive feast of love tales, from drama, lust, devotion, seduction and scandal. This intriguing, moving, sometimes hilarious love journey is available for you to play online ahead of a major new physical exhibition scheduled for March 2021.
Pub Rock
5 September 2020 – 14 February 2021
Celebrating the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on the nation’s culture and identity, Pub Rock combines works from the NPG collection with images by leading Australian music photographers. A vibrant celebration of homegrown rock ‘n’ roll, punk and pop, Pub Rock will feature staged portraits and publicity shots alongside images captured during unguarded moments and the grungy energy of live performance. Pioneering acts like The Easybeats, Little Pattie and Johnny O’Keefe will share the stage with globally-successful performers such as AC/DC, INXS, Nick Cave, The Bee Gees and Kylie Minogue and a long list of local favourites including Midnight Oil, Paul Kelly, Yothu Yindi, Cold Chisel, The Angels, Christine Anu, Marcia Hines and many more.
Videos and a curated Spotify playlist are included in the physical and online versions of the exhibition.
This is my place
19 September 2020 - 28 February, 2021
An antidote to the months spent in isolation at home, This is my place brings a fresh, intimate focus to the places that define who we are – our spiritual homes, habitats and workspaces. Featuring over one hundred works from the National Portrait Gallery Collection – spanning 250 years and incorporating painting, photography, drawing, printmaking and sculpture – This is my place will traverse the continent via the rivers, streets, mountains, studios and sportsgrounds that tell our stories. It’s an exploration of the concept of 'place' in portraiture, as well as the intricate interconnections between landscape, identity and the feeling of home.
Portrait Allsorts
19 October 2020 -31 March 2021
Featuring some of the most popular works from the NPG collection, Portrait Allsorts offers portraiture in all its flavours: painting, photography, drawing, textiles, printmaking and sculpture. Much-loved favourites include portraits of Deborah Mailman by Evert Ploeg, Lee Lin Chin by George Fetting and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch by the Victorian Tapestry Workshop as well as new acquisitions.
Before hand: The private life of a portrait
10 October 2020 – 14 March 2021
A new exhibition revealing the backstories behind iconic works from the NPG collection and the creative and social process of making a portrait, Before hand features interviews with artists and sitters as well as rarely seen working drawings, scrapbooks, sketches and footage taken in artists’ studios and out on location. Featured portraits include photographer Narelle Autio’s portrait of champion cyclist Anna Meares, David Rosetsky’s double-exposure portrait of Australian singer and actress Jessica Mauboy, Peter Brew-Bevan’s working scrapbook for this portrait of dancer and ballet director David McAllister and the transparency drawings that allowed Evert Ploeg to construct his portrait of scientist Derek Denton.
Virtual collection tours
12.30pm every Tuesday
A series of free, interactive virtual collection tours will be presented for all those seeking the Gallery experience but are at home. The thirty-minute tours are facilitated by Gallery Educators using the virtual environment and delivered via Zoom. Facilitators will examine portraits under specific themes including music, LGBTQI rights and environmentalism, encouraging comments, chat and questions from the audience to mimic the IRL experience.
A special virtual tour for the visually and hearing impaired will be delivered in partnership with Arts Access Australia on Tuesday 15th September. The tour will be live captioned, audio described and AUSLAN interpreted.
