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Love scars

Katrina Osborne immerses herself in one of photography’s most fearless chronicles.

Drawing power

The National Portrait Gallery joins the Big Draw, a program dedicated to promoting drawing as a tool for thought, creativity, social and cultural engagement.

Pen power

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

Portrait 41

This issue features Kate Beynon, Philosopher Cynthia Freeland, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, John Tsiavis & Chris Lilley, UK's BP Portrait Award, Purchasing power in colonial Sydney and more.

Facing East

An exhibition at the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC showcases the art of portraiture in Asia over two thousand years.

Observation point

Portraits take many forms, from official statements of power and status to deeply personal testaments of affection and insight.

I am mine

Dr Christopher Chapman, curator and judge of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 contextualises the themes of the exhibition.

The Obama effect

Kim Sajet reflects on two portraits with a power that extends beyond gallery walls.

Portrait 69

In conversation with Aretha Brown, Pieter Roelofs on Vermeer, humanoid robots, the nationwide search for Archibald portraits, and 25 years of collecting at the National Portrait Gallery.

Why do painted portraits still matter?

Lecture by Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, given at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra on 28 April 2006.

Figurative foundation

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and art of the Australian artist Janet Dawson.

Selfhood transcended

Anne Sanders and Christopher Chapman bring passionate characterisation to Express Yourself, the Portrait Gallery collection exhibition celebrating iconoclastic Australians.

Portrait 67

William Yang on his autobiographical self portraits, David Parker's 1970s and 80s Melbourne music photographs, seven-time NPPP finalist Chris Budgeon, and Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis.

Observation point

I met Clara while teaching photomedia at the University of Tasmania last year. One of her assignments focused on her relationship with her former boyfriend, who she now works for as his live-in carer.

Humour’s warm refuge

Angus Trumble pays tribute to John Clarke.

Joan Alone

Julia Gillard pays poignant tribute to her friend and mentor, the late Joan Kirner, Victoria’s first and only female premier.

Emerging realities

Observation point

Yvette Coppersmith considers the influences on her portrait painting.

In focus

Brook Andrew, Marcia Langton and Anthony Mundine.

Poison pen

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

Observation point

I have known Dr Aunty Matilda House, Ngambri Elder, Traditional Custodian and Cultural Knowledge Holder, since I was a child.

In the National Interest

In focussing on the importance of gifts in the building of the collection, prominence must be given to the most spectacular of the National Portrait Gallery's acquisitions; the portrait of Captain James Cook RN by John Webber R.A.

Seduce Amuse Entertain

Michael Desmond profiles a handful of the entrants in first National Photographic Portrait Prize and notes emerging themes and categories.

Apollo's breath

Christopher Chapman delights in the intimacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's photography

The Quiet Australian

Robert Oatley talks about the repatriation of the John Webber portrait of Captain James Cook.

Hearts of Darkness

The National Portrait Gallery's acquisition of the portrait of Edward John Eyre by pioneering English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

The highest honour

Bringing eminent scientist Frank Fenner and artist Jude Rae together for the National Portrait Gallery commission was like matchmaking.

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.

Powerful energy

Dr Christopher Chapman explores the symbolism in the portrait commission of Marcia Langton by Brook Andrew.

Hall of mirrors

Naomi Cass, Director of the Centre of Contemporary Photography, in conversation with Anne Zahalka.

Pin-ups

Christopher Chapman describes the art and life of Australian artist Richard Larter.

Around the grounds

Anne Sanders writes about the exhibitions Victoria & Albert: Art & Love on display at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and the retrospective of Sir Thomas Lawrence at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Take thy face hence

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

Lear unbuttoned

Sarah Engledow steps up to the footlights and applauds the storyline behind Nicholas Harding's portraits of actor John Bell.

The art of multiplicity

Meredith Hughes explores a key Portrait Gallery work, emerging into the infinite iterations of identity.

One and all

The current exhibition of portraits at the National Gallery of Ireland Print Gallery investigates just how paper-thin ideas of likeness are.

Emblems of beauty

Keith Christiansen introduces the exhibition The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Hottie's Snifter to port

Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.

The elegant thinker

Sarah Engledow pens a fond farewell to acclaimed science historian Ann Moyal.

A handful of sand

Ellen Kent examines the portrait of Vincent Lingiari and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam taken by photographer Mervyn Bishop.

Let’s dance

Emma Batchelor uncovers the compelling contemporary dance made in response to the works in Shakespeare to Winehouse.

Painters' paradise

Andrew Sayers feels the warmth in the paintings Matthew Perceval made while the sun shone in southern France.

Space in between

Rebecca Ray goes backstage with Bangarra’s Head of Design and photographer Jacob Nash.

Political profiles

Joanna Gilmour examines the prolific output of Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, and discovers the risk of taking a portrait at face value.

Pre-Raphaelite Profile

In 2006 the National Portrait Gallery acquired a splendid portrait of Victoria's first governor, Lieutenant Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe by Thomas Woolner.

Go Figure!

Claire Roberts interviews Swiss art collector Uli Sigg.

Facing Facts

Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers describes the 1922 Self-portrait with Gladioli by George Lambert.

The Royal she

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

The God-shaped hole

Exploring the photographs of Martin Schoeller, Michael Desmond delves into the uneasy pact that exists between celebrity and the camera.

Pretty in peach

Fugue in Yellow

Roger Benjamin explores the intriguing union of Lina Bryans and Alex Jelinek.

Reflections on portraiture

An extract from the 2004 Nuala O'Flaaherty Memorial Lecture at the Queen Victoria Musuem and Art Gallery in Launceston in which Andrew Sayers reflects on the unique qualities of a portrait gallery.

The inner voice

Dr Christopher Chapman, curator of Inner Worlds: Portraits & Psychology looks at Albert Tucker's Heidelberg military hospital portraits.

Mrs Cameron and the V&A

In March 2003 Magda Keaney travelled to London to join the photography section of the Victoria & Albert Museum for three months.

Subtle emotion

Christopher Chapman considers photographer Rozalind Drummond's portrait of author Nam Le.

In our nature

Tara James chats with award-winning artist Tamara Dean about portraiture prizes, the environment and the strength of women.

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.

Mash-up

Penelope Grist delves into an insightful portraiture exhibition that asks: How do three artists see the same sitter?

Moving still

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

Big it up

Former National Portrait Gallery Curator Magda Keaney was a member of the selection panel of the Schwepes Photographic Portrait Prize 2004 at the National Portrait Gallery London.

Where the wild things are

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

Unbuttoning uniforms

Sharon Peoples contemplates costumes and the construction of identity.

Life class

Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.

A new perspective

An exhibition devoted to Hans Holbein's English commissions shows the portraitist bringing across the Channel new technical developments in art - with a dazzling facility.

Study in scarlet

Angus Trumble reflects on the force of nature that was Helena Rubinstein.

Sophisticated and glamorous

Michael Riley’s early portraits by Amanda Rowell.

The activist A-list

Dr Sarah Engledow examines a number of figures in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery who were pioneers or substantial supporters of the seminal Australian environmental campaigns of the early 1970s and 1980s.

Expect the unexpected

Joanna Gilmour revels in accidental artist Charles Rodius’ nineteenth century renderings of Indigenous peoples.

I'm not there

Post digital

Tegan McAuley looks at the evolution of video portraiture.

Getting a head

Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.

Top shot that

Gideon Haigh discusses portraits of Australian cricketers from the early 20th century

All that fall

Raimond Gaita comments on war and truth in the context of the First World War.

Full time

Alistair McGhie reminisces about three Australian rugby greats commissioned for the Portrait Gallery collection by Patrick Corrigan AM.

The boy, the bed and the gun

Christopher Chapman contemplates the provocative performance art of Chris Burden. 

The Vanity model

Vanity Fair Editor David Friend describes how the rebirth of the magazine sated our desire for access into the lives of celebrities and set the standard for the new era of portrait photography.

Listening to form

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

Mugshots

A toast to the acquisition of an unconventional new portrait of former Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce.

Aretha Brown

Gumbaynggirr artist Aretha Brown talks street art, collaboration and ghost stories with First Nations Curator and Meriam woman, Rebecca Ray.

Safe space

Amy Middleton on the power of portraiture in promoting inclusivity and connecting with intersectionality and diversity in all its forms.

A sketch for some portraits

Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.

Essential portraiture

Michael Desmond in conversation with University of Houston professor of philosophy Cynthia Freeland.

Vanity fair

Ashleigh Wadman rediscovers the Australian characters represented with a kindly touch by the British portrait artist Leslie Ward for the society magazine Vanity Fair.

Technical terminology

Michael Desmond introduces some of the ideas behind the exhibition Present Tense: An imagined grammar of portraiture in the digital age.

Stigma stigmata

Angus Trumble provides poignant context for Aña Wojak’s portrait of Tony Carden.

Snap chat

2019 National Photographic Portrait Prize judge Anne O’Hehir looks beneath the surface of this year’s entries.

Head, hand, heart

An extensive selection of portraits by John Brack were on display at the National Portrait Gallery in late 2007.

You are who?

Joanna Gilmour reflects on merging collections and challenging traditional assumptions around portraiture in WHO ARE YOU.

Donated duo

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the gift of two striking paintings by the Australian artist Ken Done AM.

Black tie or wombat: How formal should I go?

Michael Desmond discusses the portrait of Senator Neville Bonner by Robert Campbell Jnr.

A rogue's calling card

Joanna Gilmour explores the stories behind the ninteenth-century carte de visites of bushrangers Frank Gardiner and Fred Lowry.

Written in Water

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

Adam’s Prize Apples

Pamela Gerrish Nunn explores New Zealand’s premium award for portraiture.

An Australian story

In his speech launching the new National Portrait Gallery building on 3 December 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set the Gallery in a national and historical context.

Hired guns, bounty hunters and horse whisperers

Jude Rae contemplates the portrait commission.

A man of superior attainments

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

Of beef in burgundy

Angus Trumble reveals the complex technical mastery behind a striking recent acquisition, Henry Bone’s enamel portrait of William Manning.

Paper, boy

Peter Wilmoth’s boy-journalist toolkit for antagonising an Australian political giant.

Diamond Doll

Karen Vickery delights in a thespian thread of the Australian yarn.

Rethinking foundational histories

A focus on Indigenous-European relationships underpins Facing New Worlds. By Kate Fullagar.

Mother’s muse

Inga Walton traces the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, revealed in the NGV’s summer retrospective.

Past present

Krysia Kitch celebrates Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Missionary positions

Stella Ramage on Father McHardy’s Bougainville portraiture.

Off grid

Aimee Board ventures within and beyond to consider two remarkable new Gallery acquisitions.

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

Their brilliant careers

Jenny Gall delves into Starstruck to celebrate some of Australian cinema’s iconic women.

Profile of a marriage

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the lives of Sir George Grey and his wife Eliza, the subjects of a pair of wax medallions in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

Conduct becoming

Penelope Grist speaks to Bill Henson and Simone Young to discover the origins of the artist’s stunning photographic triptych.

Confessional conversations

Fiona Gruber investigates the work of Australian painter Kristin Headlam.

Illuminating history

Joanna Gilmour reflects on 25 years of collecting at the National Portrait Gallery.

Us being ourselves

Penelope Grist talks to photographer Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis about capturing moments, telling stories and keeping Culture strong.

Great Scots

Diana O’Neil samples the tartan treats on offer in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Australia’s great internationalists

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

Heartfelt

The portrait of Janet and Horace Keats with the spirit of the poet Christopher Brennan is brought to life by artist Dora Toovey.

Hard truths

Jennifer Higgie reveals how Alice Neel reinvigorated 20th century portraiture with her honest and perceptive depictions of the human experience.

Home truths

Despite once expressing a limited interest in the self portrait, the idea of it has figured strongly in much of Tracey Moffatt's work and has done so in some of her most distinctive and compelling images.

The numbers man

Dr. Sarah Engledow tells the story of Australia's first Federal statistician, Sir George Knibbs.

More cash than dash

Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.

Progressive pictures

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

Through blue eyes

Works by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan bring the desert, the misty seashore and the hot Monaro plains to exhibition Open Air: Portraits in the landscape.

Love my way

Inga Walton delves into the bohemian group of artists and writers who used each other as muses and transformed British culture.

Man of war

Tedi Bills talks to George Gittoes about canvassing conflict.

The real Thea

Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.

The catechist and the cricketer

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

Getting bare

How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.

Off her own bat

Joanna Gilmour profiles Violet Teague, whose sophisticated works hid her originality and non-conformity in plain sight.

A real Pratt

The death of a gentlewoman is shrouded in mystery, a well-liked governor finds love after sorrow, and two upright men become entangled in the historical record.

Material culture

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

All the way with K of K

Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.