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Fits of delicacy and despair

Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.

Duty bound

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of colonial women Lady Ellen Stirling, Eliza Darling, Lady Eliza Arthur, Elizabeth Macquarie and Lady Jane Franklin.

All dressed up

Jane Raffan asks do clothes make the portrait, and can the same work with a new title fetch a better price?

The 'I' in Indigenous art

Jane Raffan examines unique styles of Indigenous portraiture that challenge traditional Western concepts of the artform.

Money for Myth

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

What price self?

Jane Raffan investigates auction sales of self portraits nationally and internationally.

Demimonde liaisons

Jane Raffan feasts on modernity’s entrée in the Belle Époque theatre of the demimonde.

A nose by any other name

In the exhibition William Kentridge: Drawn from Africa at the National Gallery of Australia, the artist marries Gogol's Tsarist Russia, with that of Stalin and the damaging history of his homeland, South Africa.

Pen power

Politics and personae in the portraiture of TextaQueen by Jane Raffan.

Listening to form

National Gallery of Australia curator Jane Kinsman discusses the portraiture of Henri Matisse.

Charmed by the Rose

Anthony Browell reminisces about meeting Rose Lindsay, the wife of Australian artist Norman Lindsay.

Public hanging

As a convict Thomas Bock was required to sketch executed murders for science; as a free man, fashionable society portraits.

Portrait 57

The discovery of Dempsey's People, Australian rugby greats, Athol Shmith's progressive pictures, and powerful Indigenous portraits.

Where the wild things are

Michael Desmond explores the complex portrait of Dr Bob Brown by Harold 'The Kangaroo' Thornton.

Written in Water

Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, photographers and conservationists, shared a love of photography and exploring wilderness areas of Tasmania.

Material culture

The Rajah Quilt’s narrative promptings are as intriguing as the textile is intricate.

A man of superior attainments

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of a colonial portrait artist, writer and rogue Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

Intense identity

Dr Chistopher Chapman discusses the portrait of Australian author Christos Tsiolkas taken by John Tsiavis.

Birds of a feather

Charting a path from cockatiel to finch, Annette Twyman explores her family portraits and stories.

Beautiful bones

Sarah Engledow reflects on the shared life and writing of Dorothy Porter and Andrea Goldsmith.

Tracks in the sand

Dr Sarah Engledow discusses Quentin Jones's photograph of Australian author Tim Winton.

Big shots

Djon Mundine OAM brings poignant memory and context to Martin van der Wal’s 1986 portrait photographs of storied Aboriginal artists.

The Royal she

Traversing paint and pixels, Inga Walton examines portraits of select women in Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits.

Bewitching

Roger Neill delves into the life of a lesser-known Australian diva, Frances Alda.

Support Crew

Portraits of philanthropists in the collection honour their contributions to Australia and acknowledge their support of the National Portrait Gallery.

Bloodlines

Michelle Fracaro describes Lionel Lindsay's woodcut The Jester (self-portrait).

I'm not there

Out of the shadows

Joanna Gilmour profiles the life and times of the shutter sisters May and Mina Moore.

Conflicting images

Michael Desmond reveals the origins of composite portraits and their evolution in the pursuit of the ideal.

Black and white history

English artist Benjamin Duterrau took up the cause of the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania with his detailed and sympathetic renderings.

The essence of you

Lee Tulloch remembers her great friend NIDA-trained actor turned photographer Stuart Campbell.

The news from Washington

Australia's former Cultural Attache to the USA, Ron Ramsey, describes the mood at the opening week of the revitalised American National Portrait Gallery.

Poison pen

Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

Small worlds

Bess Norriss Tait created miniature watercolour portraits full of character and life.

Speed demon

Scott Redford discusses his dynamic portrait commission of motorcycling champion and 2008 Young Australian of the Year Casey Stoner.

Prima facie

Sarah Engledow casts a judicious eye over portraits in the Victorian Bar’s Peter O’Callaghan QC Portrait Gallery.

In the galleries

Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.

The bright-eyed Mariner

Take thy face hence

Joanna Gilmour travels through time to explore the National Portrait Gallery London’s masterpieces in Shakespeare to Winehouse.

Australia’s great internationalists

Penelope Grist explores the United Nations stories in the Gallery’s collection.

The silent partner

One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.

Women make history

Jennifer Higgie uncovers the intriguing stories behind portraits of women by women in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

Icons and imagery

Alison Weir explores the National Portrait Gallery, London and the BP Portrait Award to find what makes a good painted portrait - past and present.

Splendid, many-splendoured

Sandra Bruce gazes on love and the portrait through Australian Love Stories’ multi-faceted prism.

Moving still

Anne O’Hehir on the seductive power of the film still to reflect and shape ourselves and our cultural landscape.

Drawing inspiration

Christopher Chapman absorbs the gentle touch of Don Bachardy’s portraiture.

In good company

Jean Appleton’s 1965 self portrait makes a fine addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s collection writes Joanna Gilmour.

Progressive pictures

Athol Shmith’s photographs contributed to the emergence of a new vision of Australian womanhood.

Listomania

Sarah Engledow describes the fall-out once Brett Whiteley stuck Patrick White’s list of his loves and hates onto his great portrait of the writer.

In the flesh

An exhibition of humanness in ten themes by Penelope Grist.

The catechist and the cricketer

Stephen Valambras Graham traverses the intriguing socio-political terrain behind two iconic First Nations portraits of the 1850s.

Little women

Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.

A feast of friends

John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.

Naked nostalgia

Penelope Grist reminisces about the halcyon days of a print icon, before the infusion of the internet’s shades of grey.