© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
Masters of modern Indonesian portraiture
Previous exhibition, 2014
Masters of modern Indonesian portraiture presents key modernist paintings and drawings along with a selection of contemporary works.
Beyond the Self
Contemporary Portraiture from Asia
Previous exhibition, 2011
This exhibition examines the representation of the self in current South and Southeast Asian art practice through the work of artists from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand
My Favourite Australian
Previous exhibition, 2008
My Favourite Australian is a project developed in collaboration with ABC TV and the people of Australia.
So Fine
Contemporary women artists make Australian history
Previous exhibition, 2018
This exhibition features new works from ten women artists reinterpreting and reimagining elements of Australian history, enriching the contemporary narrative around Australia’s history and biography, reflecting the tradition of storytelling in our country.
Flash
Australian Athletes in Focus
Previous exhibition, 2006
Introduction The National Portrait Gallery’s photographic exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus explores various interpretations of Australian sporting men and women.
Elegance in exile
Portrait drawings from colonial Australia
Previous exhibition, 2012
Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.
Tough & Tender
Previous exhibition, 2016
Art by Warwick Baker, Chris Burden, Larry Clark, Rozalind Drummond, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe and Collier Schorr explores personal relations, individual expression and fluid identity.
Digital Portraiture Award 2016
Previous exhibition, 2016
An annual event to extend traditional notions of portraiture and foster emerging artists with an interest in new technology.
Time and Line
In Gallery Seven
Previous exhibition, 2022
Encompassing the 1820s to the 2020s, Time and Line showcases the depth and extent of our drawing collection.
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2012
Previous exhibition, 2012
The National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition is selected from a national field of entries that reflect the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.
Beauty and strength
Portraits by Michael Riley
Previous exhibition, 2014
Influential Indigenous Australian artist Michael Riley (1960 - 2004) created these portrait photographs between 1984 and 1990 - they stand as an intricately connected group portrait of the vibrant urban-based Indigenous arts community in Sydney's inner-west at a formative moment.
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.
Dempsey's people
A folio of British street portraits 1824–1844
Previous exhibition, 2017
Dempsey’s people: a folio of British street portraits 1824–1844 is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.
Life and time
Portraits by Rod McNicol
Previous exhibition, 2015
Australian photographer Rod McNicol has consistently analysed the passing of time through the evidence of the photographic portrait. At once confronting and tender, McNicol’s portrait photographs are bold and intimate.
Rick Amor
21 Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2014
Rick Amor, noblest yet most unaffected of contemporary Australian portraitists, is also a painter of enigmatic, ominous landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes that haunt the viewer like dreams, dimly-recalled.
Impressions
Painting light and life
Previous exhibition, 2011
Impressions: Painting light and life presents portraits by, and of, artists at the heart of Australian impressionism including Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin.