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Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
200 Years of Portraiture
About Face article
To celebrate his family bicentenary, Malcolm Robertson looks at the portraiture legacy left by his ancestors.
The Right Hon. Malcolm Fraser, AC, CH
About Face article
The Right Honourable Malcolm Fraser, AC, CH, who died in Melbourne on 20 March, was the last surviving prime minister of Australia to have been sworn of H.M. Privy Council (in 1976)—hence the “Right Honourable”.
The Archduke
About Face article
The immediate chain of events that led to the outbreak of the First World War began 100 years ago on June 28.
The sensational denouement of the case
The Yarra Boot Trunk Tragedy, 12 January 1899
About Face article
The 'Yarra Boot Trunk Tragedy' unfolded a week before Christmas 1898, when some neighbourhood boys noticed a wooden box floating in the river at Richmond.
Best buds
About Face article
It’s important to have a best bud when you’re growing up. For many boys the transition from boyhood through adolescence is defined by wanting to fit in.
Friends
About Face article
Warwick Baker’s photos of his friends are intimate. They hold a stillness that allows their subjects to be at ease.
Stubbs and the horse
About Face article
One of the chief aims of George Stubbs, 1724–1806, the late Judy Egerton’s great 1984–85 exhibition at the Tate Gallery was to provide an eloquent rebuttal to Josiah Wedgwood’s famous remark of 1780: “Noboby suspects Mr Stubs [sic] of painting anything but horses & lions, or dogs & tigers.”
The selfie stick
About Face article
Last week ABC Television came to interview me about selfie sticks. The story was prompted by the announcement that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has lately prohibited the use of these inside their galleries. So far as I am aware we have not yet encountered the phenomenon, but no doubt we will before too long.
Talking heads
About Face article
In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.
An affray which deserves particular mention
Ben Hall and his gang outdone, 6 February 1865
About Face article
Bushranger Ben Hall and his cronies held around 40 people hostage in a pub north-west of Goulburn, telling their captives ‘don’t be alarmed; we only came here for a bit of fun’.
Back track
About Face article
Penelope Grist finds photographer Matt Nettheim re-visiting a formative and fulfilling career tram stop.
A papal pet encounter
About Face article
In honour of the launch of the Popular Pet Show, Angus recalls a diplomatic incident with an over-excited golden retriever.
Cocky McGrath
About Face article
The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo
Storied portrait
About Face article
Emily Casey takes in Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait, Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe.
Very fine and very like
About Face article
When did notions of very fine and very like become separate qualities of a portrait? And what happens to 'very like' in the age of photographic portraiture?
Happy New Year
About Face article
This year (in March) we will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery. In the life of institutions, twenty years is not a long time.