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Carlotta, Kings Cross (Les Girls), 1970-1971

Purchased 2006

Great Scots

Diana O’Neil samples the tartan treats on offer in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Prime number

Diana Warnes discusses the portrait of the Australian mathematician Terence Tao.

Portrait of Diana Pockley, c. 1945

Gift of Dr Simon Pockley in memory of Diana Pockley 2023. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Of jumpers and river gums, red

Diana O’Neil on Noel Counihan’s vivid 1971 portrait of Alan Marshall.

Mental as everything

Chris O'Doherty, also known as Reg Mombassa, is best-known for his Mambo imagery but he also paints a lot of self portraits.

Anatomist's eye

Robert Hannaford has completed around 400 portraits over the span of his career. 

Oz and beyond

Martin Sharp fulfils the Pop art idiom of merging art and life.

Cook in context

Robert Oatley's continuing benefaction has helped the National Portrait Gallery acquire works that add another layer to the story of Captain Cook.

Melbourne experience

Diana Warnes explores the lives of Hal and Katherine 'Kate' Hattam through their portraits painted by Fred Williams and Clifton Pugh.

Set of 129 Royal Christmas Cards and three miscellaneous items, 1951-2001

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Patricia Tryon Macdonald 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Horace Spencer Wills and Cedric Spencer Wills, c. 1859

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Horatio Spencer Wills, c. 1870

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Emily Spencer Wills, c. 1855

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Horatio Spencer Wills, c. 1855

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Egbert Spencer Wills, c. 1870

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The Mirror, 2016

2014-15 Acquisition Fund

Kristin Headlam's portrait of Chris Wallace-Crabbe was acquired with the support of the Circle of Friends in 2014.

Gil Askey, 2011

Shakespeare to Winehouse

From Shakespeare to Winehouse, Darwin to Dickens, the Beatles, Brontë sisters and Beckham, the National Portrait Gallery London holds the world’s most extensive collection of portraits.

Tough & Tender

Art by Warwick Baker, Chris Burden, Larry Clark, Rozalind Drummond, Nan Goldin, Robert Mapplethorpe and Collier Schorr explores personal relations, individual expression and fluid identity.

Self portrait, 1971

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Diana de Kessler 2009

Presence and Absence

This exhibition focuses on exploring national and communal identity through sculptural production in Australia, from the early decades of settlement through to the present day

Younger Australians more engaged with arts and history

The second annual brand-awareness snapshot of the National Portrait Gallery is again positive, with indicators moving in the right direction – for the Gallery and for Australia’s cultural engagement.

Russell Crowe, 2001 (printed 2004)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

Mungo MacCallum, 1968

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

Edward John Eyre, 1867

Presented by Sir Roy Strong and the late Dr Julia Trevelyan Oman in memory of their friendship with Gordon Darling and Marilyn Darling 2006

Nothing black and white about the Greys

Marriage: a prolonged disaster

Aussie Icon: Portrait of Jenny Kee, 2022

Purchased 2022

Max Meldrum, c. 1937

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003

Sir George Grey, c. 1845

Purchased 1999

Hilary McPhee, 2015

Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2015

The crime writer Shane Maloney, 2004

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2010
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Inner Worlds

Portraits of Australia’s pioneering psychologists and artworks by artists fascinated by the subconscious mind.

Collette Dinnigan, 2005

Gift of the artist 2006

Basil Hetzel, 2007-2008

Commissioned with funds provided by Mrs Diana Ramsay AO 2008

2013-14 Acquisition Fund

This 1910 portrait of Elizabeth Sarah (Lillie) Roberts by Tom Roberts was brought into the Gallery's collection with the assistance of the Acquisition Fund in 2013.

2012-13 Acquisition Fund

The Circle of Friends Acquisition Fund for 2012 was dedicated to purchasing a portrait of David Malouf by Rick Amor.

Icons Syndicate

Donors

Wendy Sharpe, 2000

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

National arts and history? Yes, please

Recent research shows that two thirds of all Australians have a sterling interest in the arts and Australian history. This is just one of the promising findings to arise from the National Portrait Gallery’s commissioned snapshot of its national brand awareness, via a nationally representative survey.

Supporters

Kelly in the Guard's Van en route to Beechworth (from The Australasian Sketcher, 17 July 1880), 1880

Purchased 2017

Triumphant weekend for Gallery at MAPDAs

The National Portrait Gallery has had its most successful Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (MAPDAs) ever, winning four awards across multiple categories. The awards were presented at a ceremony at the Australian Maritime Museum last Friday night.

Famous

Australian photographer Karin Catt has photographed world leaders, a host of rock stars and Oscar-winning compatriots Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, and Cate Blanchett.

Russell Crowe, 1995 (printed 2016)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Announcing Shakespeare to Winehouse

More than eighty treasures from the National Portrait Gallery London will travel to Canberra for a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from March 2022.

2015-17 Acquisition Fund

From 2015 to 2017 the Acquisition Fund was focussed on Reg Richardson AM by Mitch Cairns, a finalist in the Archibald Prize 2014, and a great example of minimalist portraiture.

2020 Annual Appeal

In 2020 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Sally Robinson's remarkable portrait of author Tim Winton.

Tom Wills, c. 1857 (printed c. 1905-1910)

Gift of T S Wills Cooke 2014. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Observation point

Tim Storrier describes the influences on the development of his artistic style.

Rick Amor

Rick Amor, noblest yet most unaffected of contemporary Australian portraitists, is also a painter of enigmatic, ominous landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes that haunt the viewer like dreams, dimly-recalled.

Portrait of Professors Margaret Gardner and Glyn Davis, 2017

Commissioned with funds provided by Jim and Barbara Higgins, Sir Roderick Carnegie AC, Rupert Myer AO and Annabel Myer, Louise and Martyn Myer Foundation, Peter and Ruth McMullin, Diana Carlton, Professor Derek Denton AC, Harold Mitchell AC, Peter Jopling AM KC, Andrew and Liz Mackenzie, Patricia Patten, Tamie Fraser AO, Bruce Parncutt and Robin Campbell, Lauraine Diggins, Steven Skala AO and Lousje Skala 2017

Vanity Fair Portraits

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

A spectral sentience

Aimee Board reveals method, motivation and mortality in the portraiture of Rod McNicol.

Judy Cassab

The artist's diary profiles six decades of Cassab's work, from the early portrait commissions of the 1950s to later paintings that have helped confirm her eminent place in the canon of Australian portraiture.

Glossy 2

Following the success of Glossy: Faces, Magazines, Now in 1999 the National Portrait Gallery again highlights the huge array of contemporary portraiture in the pages of magazines.

The fat of the land

Sir Sidney Kidman (1857-1935) is inscribed in Australian legend as the ‘Cattle King’. 

Time and light

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.

On the road again

Deborah Hill talks figures with character, as the National Portrait Gallery touring exhibitions program welcomes its millionth visitor.

The Royal she

Traversing paint and pixels, Inga Walton examines portraits of select women in Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits.

Open Air

Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.

Seduce and Destroy

Magda Keaney explores the symbolism in eX de Medici's portrait of Midnight Oil.

Husbands and Wives

'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.

Hottie's Snifter to port

Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.

Promise Fulfilled

The life and achievements of Sir Edward Holden, who is represented in the portrait collection by a bust created by Leslie Bowles.

9 lives of Karin Catt

Australian photographer Karin Catt has shot across the spectrum of celebrity, her subjects including rock stars, world leaders and actors.

Australian Visit

The exhibition will include works of art from the NPG Canberra's permanent collection with some inward loans and aims to highlight the achievements of notable Australians.

The God-shaped hole

Exploring the photographs of Martin Schoeller, Michael Desmond delves into the uneasy pact that exists between celebrity and the camera.

Profile of a marriage

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the lives of Sir George Grey and his wife Eliza, the subjects of a pair of wax medallions in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

Annual Appeal

The inner voice

Dr Christopher Chapman, curator of Inner Worlds: Portraits & Psychology looks at Albert Tucker's Heidelberg military hospital portraits.

The last word

David Hansen’s tribute to his close friend, prince of words and former National Portrait Gallery director, the late Angus Trumble.

The more things change...

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2017 Prize.

Safe space

Amy Middleton on the power of portraiture in promoting inclusivity and connecting with intersectionality and diversity in all its forms.

Stubbs and the horse

One of the chief aims of George Stubbs, 1724–1806, the late Judy Egerton’s great 1984–85 exhibition at the Tate Gallery was to provide an eloquent rebuttal to Josiah Wedgwood’s famous remark of 1780: “Noboby suspects Mr Stubs [sic] of painting anything but horses & lions, or dogs & tigers.”

Petal to the mettle

Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.

Wunderkind lost

Inga Walton on the brief but brilliant life of Hugh Ramsay.

Shiny, happy people

Glynis Jones on the Powerhouse’s retrospective of one of Australia’s foremost fashion reportage and social photographers.

Fiona McMonagle

Fiona aims to create a dangerous situation with a flood of water on the paper, forcing each work to the point where it can fail, and then rescuing it. 

The Vanity model

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.

Progressive pictures

Athol Shmith’s photographs contributed to the emergence of a new vision of Australian womanhood.

Presence and absence

The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

The tragic tale of Tom Wills, the ‘inventor’ of Australian Rules Football.

Portrait Donors

Prima facie

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

The art of Inner Worlds

Dr Christopher Chapman NPG Curator of Inner Worlds explains the development of an exhibition that spans from Surrealism to contemporary art.

Rick Amor: 21 Portraits

Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.

Less than six degrees of separation

Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.