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Fits of delicacy and despair

Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.

Poison pen

Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

My dream job

Artist David M Thomas lists some of the ideas and influences behind his video portraits.

Two pair

Brothers on farms

Malcolm Robertson tells the family history of one of Australia's earliest patrons of the arts, his Scottish born great great great grandfather, William Robertson.

Washington preview

Ron Ramsey, former Director of Cultural Relations at the Embassy of Australia interviewed NPG Washington Director, Marc Pachter, about their building renovations.

Canadian identities

An exploration of national identity in the Canadian context drawn from the symposium Face to Face at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2004.

Back in black

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

The art of dress

Emma Kindred examines fashion as a representation of self and social ritual in 19th-century portraiture.

The Vanity model

Vanity Fair Editor David Friend describes how the rebirth of the magazine sated our desire for access into the lives of celebrities and set the standard for the new era of portrait photography.

Presence and absence

The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.

The catechist and the cricketer

Stephen Valambras Graham traverses the intriguing socio-political terrain behind two iconic First Nations portraits of the 1850s.

Political profiles

Joanna Gilmour examines the prolific output of Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, and discovers the risk of taking a portrait at face value.