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April Phillips (Wiradjuri-Scottish, kalari/galari) yarns with Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley about portraiture, resilience and the spirit held within fire.
Emma Kindred looks at the career of Joan Ross, whose work subverts colonial imagery and its legacy with the clash of fluorescent yellow.
Feminism, risktaking and the politics of looking: Joanna Gilmour steps into the world of Julie Rrap.
Joanna Gilmour takes us behind the scenes of some of Ralph Heimans’ best-known portraits of royalty, heads of state and cultural icons.
Emma Kindred examines fashion as a representation of self and social ritual in 19th-century portraiture.
Joanna Gilmour reflects on 25 years of collecting at the National Portrait Gallery.
Penelope Grist and Rebecca Ray talk to the artists in Portrait23: Identity about transcending modes of portraiture.
Jennifer Higgie reveals how Alice Neel reinvigorated 20th century portraiture with her honest and perceptive depictions of the human experience.
Elspeth Pitt chats with Archibald Prize-winning artist Yvette Coppersmith about performance, coincidences and the intersection of art and life.
Joanna Gilmour delves into a collection display that celebrates the immediacy and potency of drawing as an art form in its own right.
Bradley Vincent considers Samuel Hodge’s use of the archive to create a queer vernacular of portraiture.
Joanna Gilmour reflects on merging collections and challenging traditional assumptions around portraiture in WHO ARE YOU.
Inga Walton delves into the bohemian group of artists and writers who used each other as muses and transformed British culture.
Jennifer Higgie uncovers the intriguing stories behind portraits of women by women in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.
Sandra Bruce explores a new acquisition that has within it a story of interconnectivities in the Australian art world.
Rebecca Ray goes backstage with Bangarra’s Head of Design and photographer Jacob Nash.
Sandra Bruce gazes on love and the portrait through Australian Love Stories’ multi-faceted prism.
Charting a path from cockatiel to finch, Annette Twyman explores her family portraits and stories.
Joanna Gilmour reveals love’s more intense manifestations in the tale of Lord Kenelm and Venetia Digby.
Sandra Phillips on portraits of Indigenous activism from Cairns Art Gallery’s 2019 Queen’s Land Blak Portraiture exhibition.
Inga Walton traces the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, revealed in the NGV’s summer retrospective.
Sarah Engledow pens a fond farewell to acclaimed science historian Ann Moyal.
Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.
Joanna Gilmour revels in accidental artist Charles Rodius’ nineteenth century renderings of Indigenous peoples.
Meredith Hughes explores a key Portrait Gallery work, emerging into the infinite iterations of identity.
Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.
Joanna Gilmour discusses the role of the carte de visite in portraiture’s democratisation, and its harnessing by Victoria, the world’s first media monarch.
Angus Trumble reflects on the force of nature that was Helena Rubinstein.
The Rajah Quilt’s narrative promptings are as intriguing as the textile is intricate.
The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.
Tenille Hands explores a portrait prize gifted to the National Screen and Sound Archive.
Sarah Engledow arrives at the junction of fate and hope in Sarah Ball’s poignant Immigrants series.
Joanna Gilmour explores the enticing urban shadows cast by artists Martin Lewis and Edward Hopper.
Jessica Bolton navigates the parallel tracks documenting Robyn Davidson’s astonishing journey.
‘Dear Kate Just – I’m your feminist fan’. Interview by Sophia Cai.
Jane Raffan feasts on modernity’s entrée in the Belle Époque theatre of the demimonde.
Athol Shmith’s photographs contributed to the emergence of a new vision of Australian womanhood.
Phil Manning celebrates a century of Brisbane photographic portraiture.
Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.
Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.
Sarah Engledow picks some favourites from a decade of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.
Christopher Chapman takes a trip through the doors of perception, arriving at the junction of surrealism and psychoanalysis.
Anne Sanders celebrates the cinematic union of two pioneering australian women.
Diana O’Neil samples the tartan treats on offer in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
Sharon Peoples contemplates costumes and the construction of identity.
Joanna Gilmour on Tom Durkin playing with Melbourne's manhood.
Penelope Grist speaks to Robert McFarlane about shooting for the stars.
Pamela Gerrish Nunn explores New Zealand’s premium award for portraiture.
Joanna Gilmour examines the prolific output of Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, and discovers the risk of taking a portrait at face value.
Traudi Allen discovers sensitivity, humour and fine draughtsmanship in the portraiture of John Perceval.
Angus and the arbiters talk (photo) shop for the National Photographic Portrait Prize.
The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825.
Stevie Wright (1947-2015), singer-songwriter, came to Australia from England at the age of nine.
Peter Wilmoth’s boy-journalist toolkit for antagonising an Australian political giant.
Sarah Engledow on Messrs Dobell and MacMahon and the art of friendship.
Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture.
Karen Vickery on Chang the Chinese giant in Australia.
Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.
Karl James gives short shrift to doubts about the profile of General Sir John Monash.
Jaynie Anderson reflects on her experience as sitter for Reshid Bey’s 1962 portrait.
The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.
Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.
Joanna Gilmour describes how artist Sam Leach works on a small scale to grand effect.
The death of a gentlewoman is shrouded in mystery, a well-liked governor finds love after sorrow, and two upright men become entangled in the historical record.
One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.
Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.
Politics and personae in the portraiture of TextaQueen by Jane Raffan.
Dr Anne Sanders previews the works in the new focus exhibition Paul Kelly and The Portraits.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of convict-turned-artist William Buelow Gould.
Australian artist and Archibald Prize finalist, Wendy Sharpe reflects on the art of portraiture.
Jane Raffan examines unique styles of Indigenous portraiture that challenge traditional Western concepts of the artform.
Carrie Kibbler looks at how portraiture fits into the Australian Artbank Collection.
Sarah Engledow describes the fall-out once Brett Whiteley stuck Patrick White’s list of his loves and hates onto his great portrait of the writer.
Tim Storrier describes the influences on the development of his artistic style.
Dr Sarah Engledow puts four gifts to the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection in context.
Joanna Gilmour recounts the story of ill-fated sea voyages in the early stages of the Antipodean colony.
Jane Raffan investigates auction sales of self portraits nationally and internationally.
Joanna Gilmour explores photographic depictions of Aboriginal sportsmen including Lionel Rose, Dave Sands, Jerry Jerome and Douglas Nicholls.
Artist Kate Beynon reflects on the place of portraiture in her artistic career.
Dr. Sarah Engledow tells the story of Australia's first Federal statistician, Sir George Knibbs.
Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.
Zhong Chen's paintings of boys on Chinese zodiac animals and kung fu images reflect his identity as a Chinese-Australian artist.
Joanna Gilmour describes some of the stories of the individuals and incidents that define French exploration of Australia and the Pacific.
Celebrating a new painted portrait of Joseph Banks, Sarah Engledow spins a yarn of the naturalist, the first kangaroo in France and Don, a Spanish ram.
Anne Sanders finds connections in Inner Worlds between Hungarian expatriates and the development of psychoanalysis in Australia.
Bon Scott and Angus Young photographed by Rennie Ellis are part of a display celebrating summer and images of the shirtless male.
The life and art of Australian artist Jenny Sages is on display in the exhibition Paths to Portraiture.
Dr Christopher Chapman discusses the portrait of Australian composer Paul Grabowsky by photographer Martin Philbey.
Michael Desmond introduces some of the ideas behind the exhibition Present Tense: An imagined grammar of portraiture in the digital age.
Whether the result of misadventure or misdemeanour, many accomplished artists were transported to Australia where they ultimately left a positive mark on the history of art in this country.
Projecting the splendour of the empire, and the resolve of its subjects, the bust of William Birdwood keeps a stiff upper lip in the National Portrait Gallery.
Family affections are preserved in a fine selection of intimate portraits.
Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.
Sir William Dobell painted the portraits of Sir Charles Lloyd Jones and Sir Hudson Fysh, who did much to promote the image of Australia in this country and abroad.
Works by Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan bring the desert, the misty seashore and the hot Monaro plains to exhibition Open Air: Portraits in the landscape.
Blue Mountain, Owner, Trainer, Jockey, James Scobie 1887 by Frederick Woodhouse Snr. is a portrait of James Scobie, well known jockey and eminent horse trainer.
Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of one of Melbourne's early socialites, Jessie Eyre Williams.
Dr Christopher Chapman describes the experimental exhibition Portraits + Architecture
Jerrold Nathan's portrait of Jessie Street shows the elegant side of a many-faceted lady.
The portrait of Janet and Horace Keats with the spirit of the poet Christopher Brennan is brought to life by artist Dora Toovey.
Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’.
A moving portrait of Cate Blanchett unfolds as an inspired pairing of medium and subject.
Joanna Gilmour dives into the life of Australian swimming legend Annette Kellerman.
Two professionals; Australian surfer Layne Beachley and photographer Petrina Hicks, combine their strengths to achieve a remarkable portrait.
Dr Sarah Engledow discusses Quentin Jones's photograph of Australian author Tim Winton.
Australian photojournalist Stephen Dupont's Afghanistan project captures the human experience of a country in reconstruction.
Michael Desmond reveals the origins of composite portraits and their evolution in the pursuit of the ideal.
Dr Sarah Engledow examines a number of figures in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery who were pioneers or substantial supporters of the seminal Australian environmental campaigns of the early 1970s and 1980s.
The National Portrait Gallery acquired a beguiling silhouette group portrait by Samuel Metford, an English artist who spent periods of his working life in America.
The name of Florence Broadhurst, one of Australia’s most significant wallpaper and textile designers, is now firmly cemented in the canon of Australian art and design.
In 2007 the National Portrait Gallery produced its first online exhibition featuring the animated self portraits created by some of Australia’s most innovative visual artists and animators.
Walter Lindrum, world-famous billiards player, was one of Australia's greatest sporting champions.
Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.
A brief introduction to the Weird, Wired World of Internet Portraiture.
The National Portrait Gallery has acquired an evocative depiction of soldier Peter Cosgrove by the Victorian-based painter, printmaker and sculptor Rick Amor.
Martin Sharp fulfils the Pop art idiom of merging art and life.
Glenn McGrath makes a strong impact on the English batsmen and the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.
A toast to the acquisition of an unconventional new portrait of former Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce.
The complex connections between four creative Australians; Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Robert Helpmann and Peter Sculthorpe.
Australia's former Cultural Attache to the USA, Ron Ramsey, describes the mood at the opening week of the revitalised American National Portrait Gallery.
Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the larger-than-life Australian performance artist, Leigh Bowery.
The exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus offers various interpretations of sporting men and women by five Australian photographers.
The life and achievements of Sir Edward Holden, who is represented in the portrait collection by a bust created by Leslie Bowles.
The Glossy 2 exhibition highlights the integral role magazine photography plays in illustrating and shaping our contemporary culture.
Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.
Ron Ramsey, former Director of Cultural Relations at the Embassy of Australia interviewed NPG Washington Director, Marc Pachter, about their building renovations.
Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, photographers and conservationists, shared a love of photography and exploring wilderness areas of Tasmania.
Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.
The story behind the creation of the portrait of Helen Garner by Jenny Sages.
Australia's major abstract painter Yvonne Audette discusses her portrait of sculptor Robert Kippel.
Ah Xian's porcelain portrait of paediatrician Dr. John Yu reflects Yu's heritage and interests.
Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portrait of Ninette Dutton by Bette Mifsud.
An extract from the 2004 Nuala O'Flaaherty Memorial Lecture at the Queen Victoria Musuem and Art Gallery in Launceston in which Andrew Sayers reflects on the unique qualities of a portrait gallery.
Michelle Fracaro describes Lionel Lindsay's woodcut The Jester (self-portrait).
At just 7.8 x 6.2 cm, the daguerreotype of Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa is one of the smallest works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.
Andrew Sayers explores the self-portraits created by Australian artist Sidney Nolan.