© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025
Upcoming exhibition
The NPPP is an annual prize for Australian photographers. The year’s most outstanding photographic portrait is awarded a $30,000 cash prize and photographic equipment valued at $20,000 courtesy of our Imaging Partner, Canon Australia. Entries for 2025 are open.
The Immersive World of Thom Roberts
Upcoming exhibition
The Immersive World of Thom Roberts is the first solo exhibition for multidisciplinary contemporary Australian artist Thom Roberts.
Gallery Three
Current exhibition
Gallery Three features major new acquisitions, collection highlights and favourites.
Carol Jerrems: Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2024
Carol Jerrems: Portraits is a major exhibition of one of Australia’s most influential photographers. Jerrems’ intimate portraits of friends, lovers and artistic peers transcend the purely personal and have come to shape Australian visual culture.
if only we could take the time: contemporary Australian photography
Previous exhibition, 2024
This show, staged alongside the major exhibition Carol Jerrems: Portraits, spotlights the work of three contemporary Australian artists whose work sits in dialogue with Jerrems’ legacy.
Gallery One
Current exhibition
Drawn from the National Portrait Gallery collection, this salon-style hang references the lavish 18th- and 19th-century European salons where paintings were hung floor-to-ceiling.
Joan Ross
Those trees came back to me in my dreams
Current exhibition
The exhibition is a vibrant and dynamic exhibition by acclaimed contemporary artist Joan Ross. Transforming scenes from colonial artworks through a digital ‘cut and paste’ technique and her signature fluorescent yellow, Ross explores critical issues like climate change, greed and consumerism.
Some Lads
In Gallery Four
Current exhibition
The Some Lads series powerfully and playfully depicts Russell Page, Larrakia man Gary Lang, Muruwari man Matthew Doyle, and Graham Blanco, a descendant of the Mer (Murray Island) people.
Darling Portrait Prize 2024
Previous exhibition, 2024
The Darling Portrait Prize is a biennial national prize for Australian portrait painting honouring the legacy of Mr L Gordon Darling AC CMG.
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2024
Previous exhibition, 2024
The National Photographic Portrait Prize 2024 celebrates established and emerging artistic talent from across the country.
Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2024
Previous exhibition, 2024
Launched at the National Portrait Gallery in 2022, the Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize is a competition for primary and secondary students, with four separate age categories across Kindergarten to Year 12.
Ryan Presley: Paradise won
Current exhibition
Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley's site-specific commission Paradise won is prominently positioned at the Gallery’s entrance. This ambitious new work invites conversations about the ongoing legacies of colonisation and celebrates First Nations survival and autonomy.
Ralph Heimans
Portraiture. Power. Influence.
Previous exhibition, 2024
The exhibition will feature some of the most significant portraits in the artist’s career to date, from early major works such as his painting of HM Queen Mary of Denmark through to his most recent.
Mīal by Archie Moore
In Gallery One
Previous exhibition, 2024
Archie Moore is a celebrated Kamilaroi and Bigambul artist whose practice is embedded in the politics of identity, racism and language systems. Mīal is a conceptual self portrait that counters expectations of what a self portrait should be.
Dancer
Touring exhibition, 2024
From letting loose in the lounge room to enthralling audiences on stage, this exhibition captures the experience of lives lived through dance.
Maggie Beer
In Gallery One
Previous exhibition, 2023
Our most recent commission, the portrait of Maggie Beer by Del Kathryn Barton both combines a statuesque almost devotional likeness with a spell-binding and dream-like personalised symbology of the sitter.