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The Wonder Years

Sarah Hill introduces the portrait busts of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Captain Charles Ulm by Enid Fleming.

Charlie's angles

Stephen Phillips talks to neurosurgeon Charlie Teo about his practice, perspectives and the anatomy of hope.

Peripheral vision

Aimee Board chats to emerging photographer Charles Dennington.

Fine and dandy

Whether the result of misadventure or misdemeanour, many accomplished artists were transported to Australia where they ultimately left a positive mark on the history of art in this country.

Big bouquet of Blackmans

Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.

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.

Suave

Charles Haddon Chambers the Australian-born playboy playwright settled permanently in London in 1880 but never lost his Australian stance when satirising the English.

Home and away

Sir William Dobell painted the portraits of Sir Charles Lloyd Jones and Sir Hudson Fysh, who did much to promote the image of Australia in this country and abroad.

Beguiling impressions

Sarah Engledow is seduced by the portraits and the connections between the artists and their subjects in the exhibition Impressions: Painting light and life.

Portrait 43

This issue features Cindy Sherman, Tim Storrier, Brett Whiteley and Patrick White, contemporary Chinese portraiture, Charles Blackman and more.

Portrait 64

Marian Anderson, emerging photographer Charles Dennington, piscatorial portraits, and the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou and more.

The fat of the land

Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’. 

In the round

Andrew Sayers outlines the highlights of the National Portrait Gallery's display of portrait sculpture.

Portrait 54

Explore an Indian treasure trove, photography by Robert McFarlane and Nan Goldin, Michael Taylor's expressionist paintings, the Great War portraits, and more!

Lear unbuttoned

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

Barak, respected elder

Dr Christopher Chapman looks at the life of Wurundjeri elder William Barak through the portrait painted by Victor de Pury in 1899.

Four from the 30s

Australia's tradition of sculpted portraits stretches back to the early decades of the nineteenth century and continues to sustain a group of dedicated sculptors.

Ready , set... shoot

The exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus offers various interpretations of sporting men and women by five Australian photographers.

Expect the unexpected

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

Sir William Dargie CBE

Sir William Dargie, painter and eight times winner of the Archibald Prize for portraiture, died in Melbourne on July 26, 2003, aged 91.

All in the Family

In 2000, Barbara Blackman donated a portrait of her close friends - poet Judith Wright, her husband Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith - painted by Charles Blackman.

In the thick of it

Projecting the splendour of the empire, and the resolve of its subjects, the bust of William Birdwood keeps a stiff upper lip in the National Portrait Gallery.

Cool cool world

Penelope Grist unpacks photographs by David Parker, who captured the phenomenal emergence of the 1970s and 80s Melbourne music scene.

Portrait 63

Rod McNicol's method and motivation, 19th century Indigenous peoples, Barrie Cassidy on Bob Hawke, five generations of the Kang family from Korea and more.

Nobel and his prize

To complement the exhibition Australians and the Nobel Prize, Jennifer Gason gives us a sense of the proceedings that occur during the award ceremony.

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.

Love in the extreme

Joanna Gilmour reveals love’s more intense manifestations in the tale of Lord Kenelm and Venetia Digby.

Tribute

Bob Ellis (1942–2016) was a journalist, columnist, screenwriter, film director, playwright, speechwriter and critic.

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.

The aviatrix

Joanna Gilmour explores the extraordinary life of Australian female aviator Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE

Private virtues public lives

Family affections are preserved in a fine selection of intimate portraits.

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

Poet of the Fleeting Moment

Mark Strizic's work crosses a broad spectrum of photographic fields including urban, industrial, commercial, and architectural photography. 

Little women

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

Of beef in burgundy

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

More cash than dash

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

Oz and beyond

Martin Sharp fulfils the Pop art idiom of merging art and life.

Cook in context

Robert Oatley's continuing benefaction has helped the National Portrait Gallery acquire works that add another layer to the story of Captain Cook.

The importance of being bearded

Joanna Gilmour discovers that the beards of the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills were as epic as their expedition to traverse Australia from south to north.

Life class

Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.

The Fairfax Gift

This article examines the portraits gifted to the National Portrait Gallery by Fairfax Holdings in 2003.

Form and reality

A photographic portrait by Kerry Dundas captures the contemplative mind of visionary painter Godfrey Miller.

The Obama effect

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

The artist, the scholar and the gentleman

Kwon Hyeeun introduces Korean portraits of Kang Sehwang, and five generations of the Kang family.

Mugshots

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

In the galleries

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

The life of Bryant

Tenille Hands explores a portrait prize gifted to the National Screen and Sound Archive.

Top shot that

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

Sea legged frogs

Joanna Gilmour describes some of the stories of the individuals and incidents that define French exploration of Australia and the Pacific.

In bloom

Susi Muddiman delights in Michael Zavros’ stunning portrait of the honourable Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO.

Hall of mirrors

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

Birds of a feather

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

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.

On the road again

Deborah Hill talks figures with character, as the National Portrait Gallery touring exhibitions program welcomes its millionth visitor.

The Lawrence lustre

Angus Trumble salutes the glorious portraiture of Sir Thomas Lawrence.

All there in black and white

The National Portrait Gallery acquired a beguiling silhouette group portrait by Samuel Metford, an English artist who spent periods of his working life in America.

It's a Mora!

Select extracts from Mirka Mora's autobiography, Wicked but Virtuous, provide rich accompaniment to recent Gallery acquisitions.  

The Stories Beneath

Black tie or wombat: How formal should I go?

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

Human encounters

Joanna Gilmour takes us behind the scenes of some of Ralph Heimans’ best-known portraits of royalty, heads of state and cultural icons.

Risky business

John Zubrzycki lauds the characters of the Australian escapology trade.

Air wear

Aviation carried women’s roles in society to greater heights – fashion followed suit.

Of human clay

The first collaborative commission has arrived. It's a self portrait, it's ceramic and it's from Hermannsburg.

The animating signature

Joanna Gilmore delights in the affecting drawings of Mathew Lynn.

Good, bad and the ugly

Michael Desmond explores what makes a portrait subject significant.

Ingres in Paris

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was one of the greatest portrait painters in history.

Chance encounter

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of one of Melbourne's early socialites, Jessie Eyre Williams.

The hands have it

Angus Trumble treats the gallery’s collection with a dab hand.

Adam’s Prize Apples

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

A guy from Paris

Sarah Engledow on a foundational gallery figure who was quick on the draw.

Let’s dance

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

Friends and Acquaintances

Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.

First encounters

Representations of the inhabitants of the new world expose the complexities of the colonisers' intentions.

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.

Dupain detective

Johanna McMahon revels in history and mystery in pursuit of a suite of unknown portrait subjects.

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.

The incomparable Beaton

To accompany the exhibition Cecil Beaton: Portraits, held at the NPG in 2005, this article is drawn from Hugo Vickers's authorised biography, Cecil Beaton (1985).

Selfhood transcended

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

Apollo's breath

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

Natural born stiller

Penelope Grist speaks to Robert McFarlane about shooting for the stars.

Where the wild things are

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

Everybody's heard about the bird

Two professionals; Australian surfer Layne Beachley and photographer Petrina Hicks, combine their strengths to achieve a remarkable portrait.

Subtle emotion

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

You beauty

Joanna Gilmour explores the fact and fictions surrounding the legendary life of Irish-born dancer Lola Montez.

Augustus serendipitous

The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825. 

Poets' Portraits

The Portrait Gallery's paintings of two poets, Les Murray and Peter Porter, demonstrate two very different artists' responses to the challenge of representing more than usually sensitive and imaginative men.

In a good paddock

Celebrating a new painted portrait of Joseph Banks, Sarah Engledow spins a yarn of the naturalist, the first kangaroo in France and Don, a Spanish ram.

All the way with K of K

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

High & Bligh

Joanna Gilmour explores the 1790 portrait of William Bligh by Robert Dodd.

Lauded legacy

Karl James gives short shrift to doubts about the profile of General Sir John Monash.

Conflicting images

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

Sophisticated and glamorous

Michael Riley’s early portraits by Amanda Rowell.

Hearts of Darkness

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

Hyperversity

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the larger-than-life Australian performance artist, Leigh Bowery.

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.

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.

Thrown together

Shipmates for years, James Cook and Joseph Banks each kept a journal but neither man shed light on their relationship.

Public hanging

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

Listening to form

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

Painting mates

Michael Desmond discusses Fred Williams' portraits of friends, artist Clifton Pugh, David Aspden and writer Stephen Murray-Smith, and the stylistic connections between his portraits and landscapes.

Pop goes the preconception

A National Portrait Gallery, London exhibition redefines portraiture, shifting the focus towards a new perspective on Pop Art.

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.

Finest quality

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of Chinese-Australian businessman and philanthropist Quong Tart.

Love my way

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

Aretha Brown

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

Poison pen

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

Dane reign

Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby bring eloquent context to Ralph Heimans’ portraits of Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

You are who?

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

Australians in Hollywood

The exhibition Australians in Hollywood celebrated the achievements of Australians in the highly competitive American film industry.

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.

The Multifarious Career of George Selth Coppin

George Selth Coppin (1819-1906) comedian, impresario and entrepreneur, was a driving force of the early Australian theatre.

A man of superior attainments

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

Finding Mrs Frisby

Robyn Sweaney's quiet Violet obsession.

All dressed up

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

Final frame

Karl James reflects on soldier portraiture during the Great War.

Canadian identities

An exploration of national identity in the Canadian context drawn from the symposium Face to Face at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2004.

Mother’s muse

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

Thinking about architecture and portraiture

Dr Christopher Chapman describes the experimental exhibition Portraits + Architecture

Back in black

Krysia Kitch reviews black chronicles at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Worth her salt

Jerrold Nathan's portrait of Jessie Street shows the elegant side of a many-faceted lady.

Material culture

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

Of ice and men

Frank Hurley's celebrated images document the heroism and minutiae of Australian exploration in Antarctica.

Eating the seasons

Anne Sanders imbibes Tony Bilson’s gastronomic revolution.

20 20

Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Confessional conversations

Fiona Gruber investigates the work of Australian painter Kristin Headlam.

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.

Great Scots

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

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.

Splendid, many-splendoured

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

Costantini's convictions

Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.

Cultural kaleidoscope

The complex connections between four creative Australians; Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Robert Helpmann and Peter Sculthorpe.

To the end of the earth

The portrait of Dr. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster from 1780, is one of the oldest in the NPG's collection.

Money for Myth

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

Sibly irresistible

Alexandra Roginski reveals a forceful feminist figure in the colonial period’s slippery science, phrenology.

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.

Getting a head

Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.

The Dissecting Room

Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture. 

Starry knight

Aircraft designer, pilot and entrepreneur, Sir Lawrence Wackett rejoins friends and colleagues on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.

In the flesh

An exhibition of humanness in ten themes by Penelope Grist.

The real Thea

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

Progressive pictures

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

Unknown drawer

Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.

Presence and absence

The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.

Demimonde liaisons

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

Through thick and thin

Sarah Engledow likes the manifold mediums of Nicholas Harding’s portraiture.

The Royal she

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

An actress and her fans

Dr. Sarah Engledow discovers the amazing life of Ms. Hilda Spong, little remembered star of the stage, who was captured in a portrait by Tom Roberts.

A feast of friends

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

Regarding Henrys

Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.

Prima facie

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

Petal to the mettle

Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.

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.