© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
Robert O'Hara Burke
Biography
Robert O'Hara Burke (1821-1861), explorer, came to Australia in 1853 and joined the Victorian police force.
4 portraits in the collection
Nlle. Hollande- Port Jackson - Sauvages des Montagens Bleues: Karadra and Hara-o, 1825
Alphonse Pellion
Portrait, stipple engraving on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
R O'Hara Burke, c. 1861
De Gruchy & Leigh
Portrait, lithograph on paper
Purchased 2009
Robert O'Hara Burke, c. 1860
Melbourne and Sydney Photographic Co
Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
The importance of being bearded
Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2012
Joanna Gilmour discovers that the beards of the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills were as epic as their expedition to traverse Australia from south to north.
The Burke and Wills Monument, 1869
Thomas Foster Chuck
Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001
Robert O'Hara Burke, Leader of the Victorian Expedition, 1860-1861
Henry Samuel Sadd, Fergusson & Mitchell, Melbourne after Thomas Adams Hill
Portrait, mezzotint on paper
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2007
Of Burke, Wills ... and wills
It's Complicated
Infatuation and (ill-fated) exploration
Ludwig Becker
Biography
Ludwig Becker (1808-1861), was an artist, naturalist and explorer. He was born in Germany and trained as an artist there, and after arriving in Tasmania in 1851 he settled in Melbourne.
1 portrait in the collection
William John Wills, c. 1861
De Gruchy & Leigh
Portrait, lithograph on paper
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
Julia Matthews
Biography
Julia Matthews (1842-1876), actress and singer, came to Australia as a girl with her parents, and made her debut at Sydney's Royal Victoria Theatre in 1854, aged twelve.
1 portrait in the collection
William Strutt
Biography
William Strutt arrived in Melbourne in 1850 having undertaken his training in art in Paris in the late 1830s.
1 portrait in the collection
Julia Matthews, c. 1862
Davies & Co
Portrait, albumen silver photograph carte de visite on card
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Captain W Kinghorne, 1834
Thomas James Lempriere
Portrait, oil on canvas
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007
William Robertson, 1866
Thomas Adams Hill
Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
The 1850s to the 1880s
Mo and beard timeline
The restrained and cultivated facial hair fashions evident through the first decades of the 1800s were on the wane by the middle of the century, when hirsute faces became mainstream.