© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
Joan Ross
Those trees came back to me in my dreams
Current exhibition
Discover 50 colonial-era collection works alongside 50 works by contemporary artist Joan Ross. With wit and wry critique, Ross will make you consider the artist’s role in determining which stories are told, about who and why.
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.
National Youth Self Portrait Prize
NYSPP 2008
Previous exhibition, 2008
At the end of 2007 the National Portrait Gallery launched the inaugural National Youth Self Portrait Prize and artists aged between eighteen and twenty-five were invited to submit self portraits using a variety of media including drawing, painting, printmaking and traditional or digital photography.
Headspace 1
Previous exhibition, 2000
Headspace showcases portrait art produced by secondary students from Year 7 to Year 12 in Government, Catholic and Independent schools in Canberra and its surrounding regions extending to Wollongong, Deniliquin, Leeton, Crookwell, Bombala, Narooma and Albury
Rennie Ellis
Aussies All
Previous exhibition, 2006
Rennie Ellis: Aussies All is a celebration of the life and work of the late Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.
Husbands and Wives
Photographic Portraits from 19th Century Australia
Previous exhibition, 2010
'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.
Open Air
Portraits in the Landscape
Previous exhibition, 2008
Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.
Nicholas Harding
28 Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2017
Nicholas Harding: 28 portraits features paintings of Robert Drewe, John Bell and Hugo Weaving alongside gorgeously coloured recent oil portraits, delicate gouaches and bold ink and charcoal drawings.
First Ladies
Significant Australian Women 1913–2013
Previous exhibition, 2013
First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.
Sideshow Alley
Infamy, the macabre & the portrait
Previous exhibition, 2015
Death masks, post-mortem drawings and other spooky and disquieting portraits... Come and see how portraits of infamous Australians were used in the 19th century.
To Look Within
Self Portraits in Australia
Previous exhibition, 2004
This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of self-portraits in Australia, from the colonial period to the present
Primed
Some Prime Ministers
Previous exhibition, 2019
Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.