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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

Search / james king

About Face articles

Hell's mouth, 2019 Cam Neville

Facing the inferno

About Face article

Tara James speaks to Cam Neville about his portrait series, Firefighters.

The great South Sea caterpillar transformed into a Bath Butterfly (Sir Joseph Banks)

The Bath Butterfly

About Face article

The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.

James Mccabe Executed Jany. 6th 1826

The consolations of religion

A bushranger meets his maker, 6 January 1826

About Face article

James McCabe provides proof that hanging wasn’t necessarily a fate reserved for the perpetrators of murder and other deeds of darkest hue.

Opening of the First Legislative Council of Victoria by Governor Charles Joseph LaTrobe at St Patrick's Hall, Bourke Street West, Melbourne November 13th 1851

Magna Carta

About Face article

On this day eight hundred years ago at Runnymede near Windsor, King John signed Magna Carta.

HM Queen Elizabeth II

Longest reign

About Face article

Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest-reigning British sovereign

Ellen Stirling

Very fine and very like

About Face article

When did notions of very fine and very like become separate qualities of a portrait? And what happens to 'very like' in the age of photographic portraiture?

Thomas Woolner

Missing Persons

Thomas Woolner in Australia

About Face article

Desperately seeking Woolner medallions

Monument to Mrs. Moore St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool, Sydney

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.

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

About Face article

Nothing quite prepares the first-time visitor to Cambodia for the scale and grandeur of the monuments of the ancient Khmer civilisation of Angkor.

H.H. Princess Marie Louise

Happy New Year

About Face article

This year (in March) we will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery. In the life of institutions, twenty years is not a long time.

Portrait of Captain James Cook RN

Robert Oatley AO

About Face article

The National Portrait Gallery mourns the loss of one our most generous benefactors, Robert Oatley AO.

Louise, daughter of the Hon. L. L. Smith by Tom Roberts, 1888

An Australian in Paris

About Face article

This week it is impossible not to contemplate the ways in which France has touched many Australian lives.

Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, 1824 by James Thomson

Audacity, audacity, audacity

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Angus delves into the biographies of two ambitious characters; Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir John Pope-Hennessy.

Indexing, the art of

About Face article

The first index I created was for my first book, and, to my astonishment, that was almost twenty-five years ago.

Lord Kitchener

Lord Kitchener

Imperial strategist

About Face article

Once central to military strategy and venerated in patriotic households, Lord Kitchener is now largely forgotten.

Sydney Cove medallion, 1789 by Josiah Wedgwood

The medallion

About Face article

In recent years I have become fascinated by the so-called Sydney Cove Medallion (1789), a work of art that bridges the 10,000-mile gap between the newly established penal settlement at Port Jackson and the beating heart of Enlightenment England.

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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency