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Robert Oatley AO
1928–2016
About Face article
The National Portrait Gallery mourns the loss of one our most generous benefactors, Robert Oatley AO.
A passion eating into your vitals
The ‘Mad Dentist of Wynyard Square’ in court, 18 December 1865
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The salacious and sordid details of Henry Kinder’s death transfixed Sydneysiders with a case combining murder with seduction, mesmerism, blackmail and poisoning.
Banksia and grevillea
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Portraits can render honour to remarkable men and women, but there are other ways.
Tribute: Mary Isabel Murphy
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The Chairman, Board, Director and all the staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Benefactor, Mary Isabel Murphy.
The Pavlova
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It is a painful truth, but one which must be faced up to, that the pavlova, that iconic Australian dessert, a staple since the 1930s, was actually invented in New Zealand.
Beyond the bow tie
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Nathan Faiman delves into the rich life story and legacy of Alan Goldberg.
The outlaws coolly disported themselves
Ned Kelly & co at Euroa, 9 and 10 December 1878
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'Each man arrayed himself in a new rig from head to foot, and even such luxuries as soaps and perfumery were not despised'
Indexing, the art of
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The first index I created was for my first book, and, to my astonishment, that was almost twenty-five years ago.
Prime Ministers
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On the day before the Hon. E. G. Whitlam, AC, QC, died last month, at the great age of 98, there were seven former prime ministers of Australia still living, plus the incumbent Mr. Abbott – eight in all.
Empirical art
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Several years ago I came across this curious painting on the racks in a distant, dusty corner of the store room in the basement of the Johannesburg Art Gallery in South Africa. Since then the mystery surrounding it has never been far from my mind.
Portrait dendrochronology
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Angus's latest Trumbology is accompanied by the following caveat: 'This one is reeeeeeally geeky.'
Cocky McGrath
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The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo
Audacity, audacity, audacity
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Angus delves into the biographies of two ambitious characters; Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir John Pope-Hennessy.
Maria Caroline Brownrigg
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At first glance, this small watercolour group portrait of her two sons and four daughters by Maria Caroline Brownrigg (d. 1880) may seem prosaic, even hesitant
The personal and the historical
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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.
The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush
About Face article
Some years ago my colleague Andrea Wolk Rager and I spent several days in the darkened basement of a Rothschild Bank, inspecting every one of the nearly 700 autochromes created immediately before World War I by the youthful Lionel de Rothschild.