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A bond of friendship

Australia's major abstract painter Yvonne Audette discusses her portrait of sculptor Robert Kippel.

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.

Observation point

Australian artist and Archibald Prize winner, Jenny Sages reflects on her work.

The intellectual larrikin

Barrie Cassidy pays textured tribute to the inimitable Bob Hawke.

The Wonder Years

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

Eye line

Jo Bertini describes the evolution of her portrait of artists and friends Kitty Kantilla and Freda Warlapinni.

A guy from Paris

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

Why portraiture?

Blak Douglas reflects on his experiences, process and motivation for making portraits.

Touchy touchy

Tony Curran ponders whether our phones can change the course of painting.

Myself and Eye

Magda Keaney speaks with Lewis Morley about his photographic career and the major retrospective of his work on display at the NPG.

Aretha Brown

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

1 to 6

The National Portrait Gallery's annual survey of student self portraiture highlights the processes of personal inquiry through portraiture by students from all levels across Australia.

Go glossy!

In association with the Glossy 2 exhibition, eight year 10,11 and 12 students spent two days transforming themselves into a variety of alter-egos in the first ever 8x10 Glossy Photo Shoot Workshop.

Interview

Rineke Dijkstra's photographic series of her subject, Almerisa Sehric, evolved over the course of 14 years. 

Before Too Long

The story behind the creation of the portrait of singer-songwriter Paul Kelly by the artist Jon Campbell.

Village people

Christopher Chapman discusses Rod McNicol's photographic portrait series Newcomers to my village.

Facing East

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

Speed demon

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

The line of fire

Michelle Fracaro examines the life of World War II nurse Margaret Anderson, whose portrait by Napier Waller is in the NPG collection.

On the road again

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

The Final Frontier

Magda Keaney talks with Montalbetti+Campbell about their photographic portrait of Australian astronaut Andy Thomas.

Ready , set... shoot

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

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.

Drawn from life

Penelope Grist discovers the rich narratives in Peter Wegner’s series of centenarian portraits.

Painters' paradise

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

The art of peace

Sean Davey captures the portrait of a nation renewed.

The inner voice

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

Rock art

Andrew Mayo talks to three of Australia’s most prominent and prolific music photographers — Martin Philbey, Kane Hibberd and Daniel Boud — about the challenges and inspiration behind their craft.

Mash-up

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

Life class

Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.

Boyd to man

Christopher Chapman looks at influences and insight in the formative years of Arthur Boyd.

Friends and Acquaintances

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

Keep it in the family

David Solkin ponders the provocations and inspirations of the enigmatic Thomas Gainsborough.

Corporate Characters

A collection of thirty-seven caricatures by the artist Joe Greenberg capture the heroes and villians of Australian business in the 1980s.

Expect the unexpected

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

I'm not there

Exposed: Voyeurism Surveillance and the camera since 1870

The Tate/SFMOMA exhibition Exposed examined the role of photography in voyeurism and how it challenges ideas of privacy and propriety.

Peripheral vision

Aimee Board chats to emerging photographer Charles Dennington.

What price self?

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

The art of multiplicity

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

Public hanging

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

Love in the extreme

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

Hall of mirrors

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

Elle on wheels

Lucy Quinn compares the approaches of three photographers lured to the action and culture of roller derby.

The world of Thea Proctor

The world of Thea Proctor was the National Portrait Gallery's second exhibition to follow the life of a single person, following Rarely Everage: The lives of Barry Humphries.

Listening to form

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

The real Thea

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

In profile

Penelope Grist explores the photographic instinct of four-time National Photographic Portrait Prize finalist Julian Kingma.

Waiting for Godot

'Artist and actors, advancing spasmodically, find their rhythm together' writes Sarah Engledow.

Movement is my radar

Michael Desmond charts the path of portraiture, arriving at Julian Opie’s digital realm.

Abstraction and figuration

James Angus discusses his major sculpture commission Geo Face Distributor with Christopher Chapman.

No small wonder

Joanna Gilmour describes how artist Sam Leach works on a small scale to grand effect.

Hump days

Jessica Bolton navigates the parallel tracks documenting Robyn Davidson’s astonishing journey.

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.

Enigma

Grace Carroll contemplates the curious case of Christian Waller.

Finding Mrs Frisby

Robyn Sweaney's quiet Violet obsession.

Painting them gently

Penny Grist on motivation, method and melancholy in the portraiture of Darren McDonald.

Mother’s muse

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

Weaving identity

Rebecca Ray explores the way identity, belonging and connectedness are translated through materiality in First Nations portraiture.

Give me five

National Portrait Gallery director Karen Quinlan AM nominates her quintet of favourites from the collection, with early twentieth-century ‘selfies’ filling the roster.

Take thy face hence

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

It's a Mora!

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

Back in black

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

The mind's eye

Christopher Chapman takes a trip through the doors of perception, arriving at the junction of surrealism and psychoanalysis.

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.

Lauded legacy

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

Lovingly observed

Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.

Money for Myth

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

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).

The Dissecting Room

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

Little women

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

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

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

Through thick and thin

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