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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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Punch, wife of Cullabaa, Broken Bay tribe

Punch, wife of Cullabaa, Broken Bay tribe, 1836

William Fernyhough

Portrait, lithograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Robert Edwards AO 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

G. H. Dancey

Biography

George Henry Dancey began his career as a stained glass designer in the UK and Australia, but ended it as the chief cartoonist for Melbourne Punch over 23 years to 1919..

1 portrait in the collection

Nicholas Chevalier

Biography

Nicholas Chevalier (1828-1902) was a Russian-born artist who came to the Victorian goldfields in 1855 and stayed in the colony as a cartoonist for Punch.

1 portrait in the collection

Brains trust

About Face article

Eminent doctors and scientists have for more than a century consistently caused our nation to punch far above her weight.

W.A. Bowring

Biography

Walter Bowring, born and educated in Auckland, contributed cartoons to the New Zealand observer and The weekly press, exhibited with the Canterbury Society of Arts and studied with Orpen and John in London, where he contributed to Punch, before arriving in Sydney in 1925.

3 portraits in the collection

S Calvert

Biography

Samuel Calvert studied in his native London with his father, engraver Edward Calvert, before emigrating to Australia in 1848.

1 portrait in the collection

Arthur Horner

Biography

Arthur Horner was born in Malvern, Victoria, and attended Sydney High School and the National Art School.

1 portrait in the collection

Percy Spence

Biography

Percy Spence, born in Balmain, grew up in Fiji and began art classes in Sydney in about 1888.

1 portrait in the collection

Phil May

Biography

Phil May (1864–1903), cartoonist, was born in Leeds and educated there before his family’s financial circumstances saw him leave school and start work at age thirteen.

1 portrait in the collection

Phil (Phil May), 1895

Sir Leslie Ward, Vanity Fair Magazine

Portrait, chromolithograph on paper

Gift of Mr Ronald Walker 2001

Mungo MacCallum

Biography

Mungo MacCallum (1941–2020) was one of Australia's best-known political journalists.

1 portrait in the collection

Morris Lurie

Biography

Morris Lurie (b. 1938) is a Melbourne-based author of fiction. Born to Jewish parents who had fled Poland before World War 2, he studied architecture and worked in advertising before turning to writing full-time.

1 portrait in the collection

The Sculling Match at Sydney for the Championship of the World

The Sculling Match at Sydney for the Championship of the World, 1877

an unknown artist, The Australasian Sketcher

Portrait, wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2015

Ayman Kaake

Vox pops

This photo is a self portrait. So this is me. So you can see the eye resemblance. So, and this photo is inspired by my friends, my workplace.

Will Dyson

Biography

Will (William Henry) Dyson, cartoonist, caricaturist, writer and draughtsman, was born in Alfredtown, near Ballarat, and studied for a short time in Melbourne, where he worked closely with his older brother Ambrose.

11 portraits in the collection

Percy Leason

Biography

Percy Leason, artist, illustrator and cartoonist, grew up in Victoria's Wimmera region and trained in the rudiments of art in Nhill.

1 portrait in the collection

Hon. Chris Watson

Biography

John Christian Watson, known as Chris Watson (1867-1941), Australia’s third Prime Minister, was born in Valparaiso, Chile, grew up in New Zealand and left school at 10 years of age to work on railway construction projects.

1 portrait in the collection

Edward Trickett

Biography

Edward 'Ned' Trickett (1851- 916), sculler and hotelier, was the best sculler in New South Wales by 1875.

1 portrait in the collection

Bruce Petty

Biography

Bruce Petty (1929-2023), political cartoonist, grew up in Melbourne and as a young man took night classes in art at RMIT.

1 portrait in the collection

Bungaree, late chief of the Broken Bay tribe, Sydney

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

Mungo MacCallum, press gallery cricket, 1973

Frank Hinder

Portrait, fibre-tipped pen on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Enid Hawkins 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Barton and Watson, 1902

G. H. Dancey

Portrait, pen and ink on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Tom Durkin

Biography

Thomas Coleman Durkin trained at the Williamstown School of Design and started work in Melbourne as an apprentice to an engraver and then a jeweller.

27 portraits in the collection

The Waxworks

General content

Waxworks were among the various types of entertainment venue to emerge in Australian cities in the mid-nineteenth century.

William Macleod

Biography

William Macleod, artist and magazine proprietor, attended the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts as a young teenager and saw his first illustration published in 1866.

4 portraits in the collection

Nicholas Chevalier, c. 1867

Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

Portrait, albumen photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009

The Seekers reunite 50 years on, 2011

Helen Edwards

Portrait, synthetic polymer on linen

Gift of Judith Durham, Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Prince William of Wales, by Mario Testino, 2003 publ. September 2003.
Credit: Mario Testino

Vanity Fair Portraits

Photographs 1913-2008

Previous exhibition, 2009

Vanity Fair Portraits traces the birth and evolution of photographic portraiture through the archives of Vanity Fair magazine.

Australians in Hollywood

Previous exhibition, 2003

Although perceived to be a recent phenomenon, the 'Aussie invasion' of Hollywood can actually be traced as far back as the early 1900s

I walk the line

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2009

Bruce Petty's animated self portrait captures a life's journey compressed into a few minutes.

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.

Showing character

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

Joanna Gilmour on Tom Durkin playing with Melbourne's manhood.

Expect the unexpected

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2019

Joanna Gilmour revels in accidental artist Charles Rodius’ nineteenth century renderings of Indigenous peoples.

Portrait of Private Edward Lello 1915 by Darge Photographic Company

Final frame

Magazine article by Karl James, 2016

Karl James reflects on soldier portraiture during the Great War.

Snap decisions

Magazine article by Robert Cook, 2018

NPPP judge Robert Cook provides irreverent insight into this year’s fare, and having to be a bit judgemental.

20 20

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2017

Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Madame Sibly, Phrenologist and Mesmerist

Sibly irresistible

Magazine article by Alexandra Roginski, 2019

Alexandra Roginski reveals a forceful feminist figure in the colonial period’s slippery science, phrenology.

Mick Jagger, Madonna and Tony Curtis, 1997

The Vanity model

Magazine article by David Friend, 2009

Vanity Fair Editor David Friend describes how the rebirth of the magazine sated our desire for access into the lives of celebrities and set the standard for the new era of portrait photography.

Seeing stars

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2013

Joanna Gilmour explores photographic depictions of Aboriginal sportsmen including Lionel Rose, Dave Sands, Jerry Jerome and Douglas Nicholls.

20/20 launch speech

About Face article

Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

Nicholas Harding

Explore The Popular Pet Show

Over the years the young Nicholas Harding got his hands on various mice and guinea pigs, but they served mainly to illustrate the concept of mortality.

The Triumph of Death, c. 1562 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

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.

The Right Honourable Sir Ninian Stephen KGAK GCMG GCVO KBE QC, 2006 by Rick Amor

Prima facie

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

Sarah Engledow casts a judicious eye over portraits in the Victorian Bar’s Peter O’Callaghan QC Portrait Gallery.

Some prime ministers

General content

Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.

Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits

Exhibition essay

General content

Sarah Engledow looks at three decades of Nicholas Harding's portraiture.

Christmas Island

About Face article

This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.

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