Search / charles clark

Navin Rawanchaikul

Navin Rawanchaikul has built his practice around explorations of the transient nature of identity in a globalised world, and draws much of his material from his own experiences.

FX Harsono

FX Harsono was born in 1949, just as the independence of the Indonesian nation was being established.

Alwin Reamillo

Alwin Reamillo was born in Manila, Philippines in 1964. He studied painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, and began his career as a visual art teacher at the Philippine High School for the Arts.

Larry Clark

Larry Clark's black-and-white documentary images of young outsiders reveal raw feelings. 

Charles, 2015

Winner, DPA 2016

Leaving Lost, 2013

Finalist, MDPA 2013

Extraordinary airmen make aviation history

Charles is my wingman

Rod McNicol

Rod McNicol on photographing Jack Charles.

Tough & Tender Media Release

Photographs from internationally acclaimed artists Robert Mapplethorpe, Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, Collier Schorr and Chris Burden along with contemporary Australian artists, Rozalind Drummond and Warwick Baker will call the National Portrait Gallery home during our extraordinary winter exhibition Tough and Tender.

Ron Mueck

Ron Mueck grew up in Melbourne and began a career in puppetry and special-effects based in the US and then London. In the mid-1990s Charles Saatchi commissioned four major works including Dead dad, which were exhibited in Saatchi’s exhibition ‘Sensation’ at the Royal Academy, London and which travelled to Berlin and Brooklyn.

The Winner of the Digital Portraiture Award 2016 is...

The winner of the Digital Portraiture Award 2016 has been announced. Congratulations to Amiel Courtin-Wilson for his submission titled Charles.

Swimming every day

Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2015 Prize.

The Brougham

A philosopher-style of beard – thick and lengthy; a greyer, hence wiser version of the Burke; and suited to older men who saw themselves as sagacious or statesmanlike.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022)

The National Portrait Gallery is deeply saddened by the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Throughout her 70-year reign, Her Majesty represented graciousness, humanity and stability during times of enormous social change.

The Lambert

Barbering manuals of the turn of the century might describe this style as a ‘Van Dyck’, named after the Dutch painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) who is known to have adopted this look.

Literary lovers’ life liaison

Desire drives forbidden love

New Australians bring creative wealth

Melbourne’s iconic culture-shapers

Beadles, bellmen and bumbles

For Dempsey’s people their occasional encounters with state power would have been largely through the local parish, which administered the ‘Old Poor Law’.

So Fine

The National Portrait Gallery is pleased to announce its winter exhibition is So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history. It will open to the public from 29 June 2018.

In the most correct style

Desirable outcomes, undesirable origins

So Fine

Ten women artists explore the possibilities of portraiture as a contemporary art form; and reinterpret and reimagine Australian history in the Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history.

Friendship’s rhyme and reason

Poetic trio

Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award media information

The National Portrait Gallery recently announced the finalists for the Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award 2013.

The 1850s to the 1880s

The restrained and cultivated facial hair fashions evident through the first decades of the 1800s were on the wane by the middle of the century, when hirsute faces became mainstream.

Rod McNicol

Australian photographer Rod McNicol has consistently analysed the passing of time through the evidence of the photographic portrait. At once confronting and tender, McNicol’s portrait photographs are bold and intimate.

Paul Kelly and The Portraits media information

Paul Kelly & The Portraits presents a multifaceted image of the performer over the course of his career.

2015-17 Acquisition Fund

From 2015 to 2017 the Acquisition Fund was focussed on Reg Richardson AM by Mitch Cairns, a finalist in the Archibald Prize 2014, and a great example of minimalist portraiture.

2020 Annual Appeal

In 2020 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Sally Robinson's remarkable portrait of author Tim Winton.

The 1890s to the 1940s

Although the tough, weathered, hard-drinking bushmen of the kind mythologised by writers like Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson are popularly associated with the character of late nineteenth century Australia, it was also a time when alternative ideas about identity began to come into play.

Rare Set of Watercolour Paintings on Display for the First Time

A rare and enchanting collection of 52 portraits of British street people will be on display for the first time in the National Portrait Gallery’s winter show, Dempsey’s People: a folio of British street portraits 1824-1844.

Portrait Donors

Allow me to introduce...

These full-length figures in watercolour, gouache and pencil date mostly from the 1820s, and almost all come from the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart.

Philanthropic donations enable otherwise unobtainable acquisition

A magnanimous portrait of Helena Rubinstein has been acquired for the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

Australian Love Stories

A major new exhibition celebrating love in all its guises. Opening 20 March 2021.

Annual Appeal

Harriet Schwarzrock: spaces between movement and stillness

To celebrate the new exhibition Australian Love Stories, renowned Australian glass artist Harriet Schwarzrock has been commissioned to make a large-scale installation reflecting on the role the heart plays as our emotional centre.

Janet Dawson

When soulmates Janet Dawson and Michael Boddy moved from Sydney to a property, Boddy was clear about why: ‘Our marriage is one long conversation - we moved to the bush so we could talk to each other without so many interruptions.’

Announcing... Ralph Heimans: Portraiture. Power. Influence.

In March 2024, the National Portrait Gallery will launch a major exhibition of the work of Ralph Heimans AM, the Australian artist who’s painted some of the world’s most recognisable people.

2023 Annual Appeal

In 2023 the Annual Appeal was focussed on a work by one of Australia's best loved and most successful portrait painters, Judy Cassab AO CBE, depicting model, entrepreneur and deportment icon, June Dally-Watkins OAM.

Announcing Shakespeare to Winehouse

More than eighty treasures from the National Portrait Gallery London will travel to Canberra for a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from March 2022.

Rick Amor: 21 Portraits

Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.

Arianne McNaught

An interview with the photographer.

Kristin Headlam

Basil grew into a speckled beauty – a long-legged leaper and an exceptionally vocal dog, with a great register of sounds, ascending in shock value from a whimper to a growl to a bark to a yelp that’s a violation of the ears.

The Bare story

Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be

Less than six degrees of separation

Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.

Uncommon Australians

Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.

History

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

Nicholas Harding

Over the years the young Nicholas Harding got his hands on various mice and guinea pigs, but they served mainly to illustrate the concept of mortality. 

Some prime ministers

Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.

The more things change...

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.

Inner Worlds and psychoanalysis

Inner Worlds evokes a broad view of psychology as a discipline. However, the specific interests of the practitioners whose portraits are included in the exhibition incorporate specialist areas including psychoanalysis.