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Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
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Elegance in exile
Portrait drawings from colonial Australia
Previous exhibition, 2012
Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.
David M Thomas
Dream Job
Previous exhibition, 2011
Since 1993 Brisbane-based artist David M Thomas has investigated self identity through art works that encompass painting, text, audio, video and performance.
Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe
Shirley Purdie
Previous exhibition, 2020
Using ochres collected on her country in Western Australia’s East Kimberley, Shirley Purdie’s self-portrait is a kaleidoscope of traditional Gija stories and Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) passed down to her.
Mysterious eyes
Arthur Boyd portraits from 1945
Previous exhibition, 2016
Boyd’s self-portrait at age 25 is joined by his equally emotive portraits of those around him.
Paul Kelly and The Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2013
Aspects of singer songwriter Paul Kelly’s performance persona are communicated by portraits selected from a range of artists and leading music photographers in this focus exhibition.
Clifton Pugh
Australians
Previous exhibition, 2005
This exhibition offers a comprehensive display of Clifton Pugh's portraits revealing his development and growth from tonal paintings to a unique style that was in demand from politicians, artists, academics and Australian personalities.
Headspace 3
Being Me
Previous exhibition, 2002
The self-portrait enables students to explore emerging and changing aspects of their own identity, their sense of self, their place in the world, their experience of being human
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.
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.
Time and light
In Gallery Seven
Previous exhibition, 2023
This sample of 56 photographs takes in some of the smallest photographs we own and some of the largest, some of the earliest and some of the most recent, as well as multiple photographic processes from daguerreotypes to digital media.
Heads of the People
A Portrait of Colonial Australia
Previous exhibition, 2000
For Tom Roberts - Australia's best nineteenth-century portrait painter - neither a proto-national portrait gallery nor more popular collections of portrait heads, were sufficient public celebrations for the notables of Australian history
Making Portraits
Five Years of National Portrait Gallery Commissions
Previous exhibition, 2004
The considered matching of artist to subject has produced an amazing collection of unique and original works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009
Previous exhibition, 2009
In its second year at the National Portrait Gallery, and for the first time touring to other venues, the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 continues to present surprising perspectives on the nature of contemporary portrait photography.
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.
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.
Uncommon Australians
The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling
Previous exhibition, 2015
This exhibition showcases portraits acquired through the generosity of the National Portrait Gallery’s Founding Patrons, L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC.