The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.
Leonard French OBE (1928-2017) left school at fourteen to become an apprentice signwriter in his native Melbourne. He later studied part-time at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. After the war, he visited Europe, studying the Byzantine art whose influence would later become evident in his work. On his return to Australia, he taught at various Melbourne technical schools until the late 1950s. In 1956 he completed the seven-panel Legend of Sinbad the Sailor which hung in the ultra-modern Legend café in Melbourne. Henceforth, he became one of the country's most successful and sought-after artists (although he worked as the National Gallery of Victoria's Exhibitions Officer between 1956 and 1960). His enormous dalle de verre (concrete and slab glass) ceiling in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria was commissioned in 1963, and completed in 1968; other monumental glass projects of the sixties and seventies were the windows for the new National Library in Canberra, the Alpha and Omega window in Monash University's Blackwood Hall and the mural Regeneration in the Great Hall of University House, ANU.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
The series 'David Moore: From Face to Face' was acquired as a gift of the artist and with financial assistance from Timothy Fairfax AC and L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001
© Lisa, Michael, Matthew and Joshua Moore
http://davidmoorephotography.com.au/
Tim Fairfax AC (54 portraits supported)
The Gordon Darling Foundation (36 portraits supported)
Drop into the Gallery for free creative activities inspired by the flora and fauna featured in the vibrant exhibition, Joan Ross: Those trees came back to me in my dreams.
Do we have a treat for the smaller humans in your life! Little Faces is for babies and toddlers (with their grown up) to play, sing and have fun discovering a portrait together.
Join us for Portrait Play these school holidays as we explore portraits and music. Come and meet the people that live on our walls, discover musical instruments hidden in the portraits and get creative on your journey through the galleries.
The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.
This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.
The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.
The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency