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Paul Kelly

A companion to our 2013 exhibition Paul Kelly & The Portraits. For Year 7 to Year 12 students.

Paul Kelly and The Portraits media information

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

Gail Kelly, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Westpac Group and Optus 2018

Deborah Kelly

Deborah Kelly, based between Gadigal Country, Sydney and Jerrinja Country, Currarong, is known for her multi-disciplinary, exuberant and diverse participatory collages and costumes that come to life in workshops and performances.

The Last Paul Mumme Work, 2015

Finalist, DPA 2016

She saved his life. He showed her painting.

Leaders, painters, friends

Festival opening night dinner with Paul West

Join the host of River Cottage Australia for a special meal and conversation

Prison and death in the 19th century

These books include sixteen inmates including Ned Kelly, Captain Moonlite and Frederick Deeming and twelve sketches of the deceased, including several children. For Year 7 – 9 students.

Help warm the Canberra community

National Portrait Gallery and the St Vincent de Paul Society are asking Canberrans to pick up their knitting needles and crochet hooks to create warm winter scarves to assist people in need.

Artists and Collectives

Arts Project Australia, Yarrenyty Arltere Artists, ‘stArts with D’ Performance Ensemble, Abdul Abdullah, Alison Alder, Amrita Hepi, Atong Atem, Christopher Bassi, Kate Beynon, Mia Boe, Baby Guerrilla, Tarryn Gill, Julie Gough, Naomi Hobson, Deborah Kelly, Fiona McMonagle, Angelica Mesiti, Dylan Mooney, Nell, Sally Smart, Vipoo Srivilasa, Latai Taumoepeau and Kaylene Whiskey.

Mal Meninga, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018

Protest!

Rock’s raw potency made it the ideal medium for fomenting protest. The 1970s, 80s and onwards saw calls for social and environmental justice ring out through song.

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.

Mia Boe

Mia Boe is a Narrm/Melbourne-based artist known for her haunting and evocative painting practice, informed by her Butchulla and Burmese ancestry.

15 minutes of frame

Delve into the lives, loves and labour of the world’s most prominent portrait galleries in this international conversation series.

Announcing... Pub Rock

An exhibition that celebrates the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on the nation’s identity, opens at the National Portrait Gallery on 5 September, 2020.

Our only concern is the void, 2013

Winner, MDPA 2013

Past directors

Directors of the National Portrait Gallery from 1998 to today.

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.

The Portrait Gallery

Photography played a significant role in the circulation of messages about law and order, and in the creation of sensation and celebrity. 

Icons Syndicate

Judge a person by their cover

Alexandra Roginski explains the history behind the pseudo-science of phrenology, popular in the nineteenth century.

Sideshow Alley: Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

Bushrangers, oddities, true crime and scandal come together in this modern day cabinet of curiosities.

Spring exhibition program

The following on-line and physical exhibitions are planned to open at the National Portrait Gallery in coming months. For those who can’t travel at present, selected works from all exhibitions will be included online

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.

Oz Origins

Australia’s passion for rock ‘n roll was kindled by American and British acts in the 1950s and 60s. The novel genre’s driving, licentious rhythms and voices captured imaginations and libidos, not to mention aspiring young musicians.

Donors

Supporters

Artist interviews

Summertime Fun at the National Portrait Gallery

Escape the heat this summer and step inside the National Portrait Gallery for an array of family-fun activities. From storytelling and drawing to music and art, there’s something for everyone to enjoy at the Gallery.

Portrait Donors

More about the National Photographic Portrait Prize

Comments from our judges and information about entering the 2017 Prize.

Ms Karen Quinlan appointed to lead the NPGA

The Board of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia is delighted to announce the appointment of Ms Karen Quinlan as its incoming Director.

Seduce, Amuse, Entertain

Michael Desmond, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2007 Prize.

New Chair of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia Board

The Morrison Government has appointed Mrs Penny Fowler as Chair of the Board of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia (NPGA) for a 3 year term, commencing on 1 January 2022.

Jacki Weaver, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2018

Tony Shaw, 2018

Commissioned with funds from the Patrick Corrigan Portrait Commission Series 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.

Announcing... Portrait23: Identity

In this major new exhibition marking the National Portrait Gallery’s third decade, 23 Australian artists and collectives have been invited to create portraits without constraints or boundaries.

Tan Le, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018

The Writer: Peter Goldsworthy, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Jillian Broadbent AO and Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018.

Announcing.... In their own words

Inspiring Australians tell their own stories in a unique new gallery audio tour, developed in collaboration with the National Library of Australia.

L. Gordon Darling AC CMG

The Chairman, Board, Director and all the Staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Founding Patron, who died peacefully in Melbourne this morning. He was 94.

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.

History

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

Equation of a life – a portrait of Derek Denton

The National Portrait Gallery, has welcomed the newest portrait commission of Emeritus Professor Derek Denton AC by Evert Ploeg.

The more things change...

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

The National Portrait Prizes

The National Portrait Gallery today announced finalists for the inaugural Darling Portrait Prize, a national new $75,000 prize for Australian portrait painting, and released selected images from the final prize pool for the popular National Photography Portrait Prize.

Forum participants

Biographies of participants in the Writing lives, revealing lives forum.

Faces of war

Lesley Harding, Curator, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne explores Albert Tucker’s experience of World War II, his interests in the intersection between psychology and creativity, and their influence on his portrait making.

To arrive at hope

Penelope Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2020 Prize.

Some women you may not know

‘Everybody’s lives are built by so many influences, and for me, it is writers, artists and activists who have influenced how I think about the world.’

Some prime ministers

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

Fiona McMonagle

Fiona aims to create a dangerous situation with a flood of water on the paper, forcing each work to the point where it can fail, and then rescuing it. 

NPPP 2016 exhibition essay

Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.

Noel McKenna

It’s a matter beyond dispute that in the entire history of Australian art, it’s Noel McKenna who’s painted the liveliest rendition of the head of a Chihuahua.

Everybody, look serious

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2014 Prize.

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.

A non-material and non-physical portrait

Inner Worlds features the recently commissioned portrait of world-renowned philosopher of consciousness David Chalmers by Melbourne-based artist Nick Mourtzakis.

Uncommon Australians

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

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.