© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
The Bath Butterfly
About Face article
The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.
Banksia and grevillea
About Face article
Portraits can render honour to remarkable men and women, but there are other ways.
Missing Persons
Thomas Woolner in Australia
About Face article
Desperately seeking Woolner medallions
Remembering Ursula
About Face article
I first knew Dr. Hoff when in 1986, long after retiring from the National Gallery of Victoria, she taught a graduate seminar on Rembrandt.
Cocky McGrath
About Face article
The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo
Diseased curiosity
Captain Moonlite et al on trial for murder
About Face article
Just after 10.00 o'clock on 3 December 1879, four prisoners were brought from their cells at Darlinghurst Gaol and placed in the dock of a courtroom heaving with agitated spectators
Desert Island Discs
About Face article
I agonized over the choice of four songs to take with me to the ABC Studios for Alex Sloan’s Canberra 666 afternoon program, a sort of iteration of the old BBC Desert Island Discs.
Queen Victoria
About Face article
Last Sunday I had the privilege of appearing at the Canberra Writers’ Festival in conversation with Julia Baird. The subject of our session was Julia’s recent biography, Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman who Ruled an Empire.
The personal and the historical
About Face article
Where do we draw a line between the personal and the historical? Although she died in Melbourne in 1975, when I was not quite eleven years old, I have the vividest memories of my maternal grandmother Helen Borthwick.
Portraiture in a Bleak House
About Face article
It may seem an odd thing to do at one’s leisure on a beautiful tropical island, but I spent much of my midwinter break a few weeks ago re-reading Bleak House.
Dempsey's people
About Face article
Those of you who are active in social media circles may be aware that through the past week I have unleashed a blitz on Facebook and Instagram in connection with our new winter exhibition Dempsey’s People: A Folio of British Street Portraits, 1824−1844.
Wicked but Virtuous
About Face article
Faith Stellmaker shares pioneering artist and restaurateur Mirka Mora’s lasting legacy on Melbourne’s art, dining and culture.
Indexing, the art of
About Face article
The first index I created was for my first book, and, to my astonishment, that was almost twenty-five years ago.
Dance like everyone’s watching
About Face article
Penelope Grist’s spirits soar with Lisa Tomasetti’s Dancers in the Streets series.
Christmas Island
About Face article
This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.
The National Portrait Gallery's 20th Anniversary
About Face article
Last month we marked the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery, the tenth of the opening of our signature building, and the fifth of our having become a statutory authority under Commonwealth legislation.