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Virtual Excursions

Live, interactive learning programs coming soon wherever you are.

Tim Fairfax, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018

Charles, 2015

Winner, DPA 2016

Philanthropy Australia names Tim Fairfax as Australia’s 2021 Leading Philanthropist

Australian philanthropy’s highest honour, the Leading Philanthropist Award, was awarded to Tim Fairfax AC for his significant and enduring contributions to rural and regional Australia, as well as his passionate support and advocacy for organisations involved in education, arts and culture.

Extraordinary airmen make aviation history

Charles is my wingman

Rod McNicol

Rod McNicol on photographing Jack Charles.

Honour board

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges and thanks all its supporters.

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.

Portrait stories

A selection of audiovisual stories about the artists and subjects in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

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.

Icons Syndicate

Foundation members announced

The newly-established National Portrait Gallery Foundation met for its inaugural meeting last Friday 15 May in Canberra.

Portrait stories

The National Portrait Gallery interviewed the 20/20 artists and subjects throughout the commissioning journey. Browse these Portrait Stories to get insights into the incredible achievements of the subjects and the creation of their portraits.

Li Cunxin, 2017–2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2018

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

Alison Alder

One of Australia’s preeminent printmakers, Alison Alder explores social and political issues through her art practice from her studio in Mongarlowe on Yuin Country.

New Australians bring creative wealth

Melbourne’s iconic culture-shapers

A free family festival to celebrate spring and Children’s Week

Wake from your winter hibernation to celebrate Children’s Week and Canberra’s spring season at the National Portrait Gallery’s free Spring Festival.

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’.

Catherine Livingstone, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2018

In the most correct style

Desirable outcomes, undesirable origins

Friendship’s rhyme and reason

Poetic trio

Donors

Fred Hilmer, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018

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.

Supporters

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.

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.

National Portrait Gallery unveils twenty new portrait commissions to celebrate twenty years

The National Portrait Gallery has unveiled twenty new portrait commissions of Australian leaders and individualists as part of its twentieth birthday celebrations in a new exhibition, 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

Foundation Members

Chairman Sid Myer AM, Hayley Baillie, Tim Bednall, Jillian Broadbent AC, Patrick Corrigan AM, Marilyn Darling AC, Tim Fairfax AC, Penny Fowler AM, John Liangis, Dr Helen Nugent AC and Nigel Satterley AM.

Portrait Donors

Australian Love Stories

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

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.’

History

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

Philanthropic donations enable otherwise unobtainable acquisition

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

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.

Uncommon Australians

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

Andrew Sayers AM FAHA

The Chairman, Board, Director and staff mourn the loss of the National Portrait Gallery's inaugural director.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The art of Inner Worlds

Dr Christopher Chapman NPG Curator of Inner Worlds explains the development of an exhibition that spans from Surrealism to contemporary art.