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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.

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Exhibitions

show all 49

Dancer

Touring exhibition, 2024

From letting loose in the loungeroom to enthralling audiences on stage, this exhibition celebrates dance and dancers.

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.

Frocked up

In Gallery Six

Current exhibition

The selection of works in Frocked up richly demonstrates the interconnectedness of costume and portraiture – and the many ways in which artists have employed the representation of dress to powerful, insightful effect.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023

Previous exhibition, 2023

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

WHO ARE YOU

Australian portraiture

Previous exhibition, 2022

Featuring 130 works across painting, film, photography, screen printing, sculpture, and then some – it explores our inner worlds, outer selves, intimacy, isolation, celebrity and more.

Portrait Allsorts

In Gallery Seven

Previous exhibition, 2020

Offering portraiture in all its flavours: painting, photography, drawing, textiles, printmaking and sculpture, this exhibition is a feast for minds and eyes.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020

Previous exhibition, 2020

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

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.

Carte-o-mania!

Previous exhibition, 2018

Drawn from the NPG’s burgeoning collection of cartes de visite, Carte-o-mania! celebrates the wit, style and substance of the pocket-sized portraits that were taken and collected like crazy in post-goldrush Australia.

Collection: Icons

Volume Two

Previous exhibition, 2018

The second instalment of a display featuring bold contemporary portraits drawn from the collection. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

Previous exhibition, 2018

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Lovers And Luggers : Publicity Shot featuring Shirley Ann Richards Lloyd Hughes And Elaine Hamill (1937)

Starstruck

Australian Movie Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2017

Striking, beautiful portraiture comes out of the most thoroughly documented creative process there is – filmmaking. In a ground-breaking collaboration the National Portrait Gallery and National Film and Sound Archive invite you into this captivating realm between real and fictional worlds.

Copeman, gardener, Great Yarmouth by John Dempsey

Dempsey's people

A folio of British street portraits 1824–1844

Previous exhibition, 2017

Dempsey’s people: a folio of British street portraits 1824–1844 is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.

Awesome Achievers

Stories from Australians of the Year

Touring exhibition, 2016

Celebrate and be inspired by talent, passion and achievement – and triumph over adversity. This exhibition features major portraits drawn from the National Portrait Gallery collection and supplemented with works from private and institutional sources.

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.

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.

show all 49

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