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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

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Ruby (left view), 2022 Shea Kirk

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023

Previous exhibition, 2023

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Escape, 2006 by Eddy Collett

Headspace 7

Me and My Place

Previous exhibition, 2006

Headspace 7: Me and My Place, the seventh in the National Portrait Gallery's series of student exhibitions, will be presented at Commonwealth Place. Me and My Place is the curatorial theme for the 2006 exhibition.

Henry Squires

Henry Squires

Henry Squires

Henry Squires, c. 1861

Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite, hand coloured on card

Purchased 2009

Kerry Walker

Kerry Walker AM

Kerry Walker AM, actor, graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1974 and made her professional stage debut in a melée in Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet with the Australian Ballet.

1 portrait in the collection

image not online

Thomas Griffiths Wainewright

Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1847) is one of the most intriguing and talented figures in colonial Australian art.

4 portraits in the collection

Emile Sherman

Emile Sherman

Emile Sherman (b. 1972), film producer, graduated from the University of New South Wales before beginning his career with a documentary about his great-great-uncle Chatzkel, a Lithuanian Jew who lived through both world wars and the Bolshevik revolution.

3 portraits in the collection

After Jack

Jenny Sages

Jenny Sages (b. 1933), artist, was born to Russian Jewish parents in Shanghai and came to Australia with her family in 1948.

34 portraits in the collection

Lauren in Red, 2003

Is the truth of portraiture vested exclusively in likeness?

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2006

Curator Michael Desmond introduces the exhibition Truth and Likeness, an investigation of the importance of likeness to portraiture.

Edward Paine Butler

Poison pen

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

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

June Dally-Watkins

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.

Jessie Robertson

Jessie Robertson

Jessie Robertson

Jessie Robertson, c. 1849

Portrait, pencil, chalk and gouache on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC 2013

NPG staff October 2019

Contact us

Find a contact at the National Portrait Gallery.

Reg Richardson AM

Grow the Portrait Gallery of Australia

Archived media releases 2016

The Portrait Gallery is calling for contributions to support in the acquisition of superb portraits for the national collection.

Nellie Melba

Fame or celebrity?

About Face article

A question lately cropped up in connection with Madame Melba as to whether fame and celebrity are not essentially the same thing. My feeling is that they are different.

image not online

Shaun Gladwell

Shaun Gladwell (b. 1972), new-media artist, photographer and painter, gained his qualifications in art at Sydney College of the Arts and the University of New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

Silent Strength, 2021 Wayne Quilliam

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022

Previous exhibition, 2022

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
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Phone +61 2 6102 7000
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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency