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Aborigines at Oyster Cove, Tasmania, 1858 (printed 1890s)

Purchased 2011

Flora and Fauna, Giara: White Cockatoo

Joseph Dalton Hooker, c. 1880s

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009

Téa-Anna Parvathy Murrin – Australian cultural identity

Mr. Zee

The Quarry

Glenn Murcutt

Recorded 2017

Prince Charles Edward Stuart

Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, c. 1890

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Sir Joseph Banks, c. 1788

Purchased 2010

Ryan Presley: Paradise won

Marri Ngarr artist Ryan Presley's site-specific commission Paradise won is prominently positioned at the Gallery’s entrance. This ambitious new work invites conversations about the ongoing legacies of colonisation and celebrates First Nations survival and autonomy.

Christopher Bassi

Known for his representational painting, Meriam and Yupungathi man Christopher Bassi, based in Meanjin/Brisbane, addresses issues surrounding cultural identity, alternative genealogies and colonial legacies.

Explore The Popular Pet Show

Curator, Sarah Engledow, introduces the artists and the animals in The Popular Pet Show.

Sir Charles Lloyd Jones, 1951

Gift of the Simpson family in memory of Caroline Simpson OAM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2022

Little Darlings is for primary and secondary students, with four separate categories across Kindergarten to Year 12. Responding to the theme ‘identity’, students painted, drew, photographed, printed or combined all of these to make their portrait.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022

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.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022

Let’s look closely at the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022 together! For students and family groups.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 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.

Of human clay

The first collaborative commission has arrived. It's a self portrait, it's ceramic and it's from Hermannsburg.

Pre-Raphaelite Profile

In 2006 the National Portrait Gallery acquired a splendid portrait of Victoria's first governor, Lieutenant Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe by Thomas Woolner.

Anna Culliton

Anna Culliton never had a colouring-in book when she was little. Her parents –Tony, a filmmaker, and Stephanie, a painter – wouldn’t let her have one. Instead, they insisted on her drawing her own pictures to colour-in. 

Modern Australian Women

Close contemporaries, Thea Proctor, Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith were frequently sources of inspiration and irritation to each other. 

Moving in creative circles

Harold Cazneaux's portraits of influential Sydneysiders included Margaret Preston and Ethel Turner, both important figures in the development of ideas about Australian identity and culture.

Home and away

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.

Birds of a feather

Charting a path from cockatiel to finch, Annette Twyman explores her family portraits and stories.

The 'I' in Indigenous art

Jane Raffan examines unique styles of Indigenous portraiture that challenge traditional Western concepts of the artform.

Alter ego

Tom Fryer surveys the twentieth-century architectural project, and finds representation and the portrait were integral elements.

A spectral sentience

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

Christmas Island

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.

Petal to the mettle

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