© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
Why portraiture?
Magazine article by Marikit Santiago, 2023
Marikit Santiago refects on her experiences, process and motivation for making portraits.
Empirical art
About Face article
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.
Hard truths
Magazine article by Jennifer Higgie, 2022
Jennifer Higgie reveals how Alice Neel reinvigorated 20th century portraiture with her honest and perceptive depictions of the human experience.
Waterloo and Mrs. Moore
About Face article
Beyond the centenary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, a number of other notable anniversaries converge this year. Waterloo deserves a little focussed consideration, for in the decades following 1815 numerous Waterloo and Peninsular War veterans came to Australia.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain
About Face article
European painters always enjoyed a good deal of latitude in the representation of angels, those asexual, bodiless, celestial regiments of God, so long as they were young and beautiful.
The Black Death
About Face article
The best horror stories are real. A flea sinks its proboscis into the skin of a sick black rat, feeds on its blood, and ingests lethally multiplying bacteria.