Search / george young

Blood, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office after John Smart

Sir George Young (1732–1810), naval officer, first went to sea at the age of fourteen and saw action in Europe and India before joining the East India Company’s marine in 1753.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Young Kt, Admiral of the White Squadron, 1814

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

Malcolm and Angus Young, AC/DC

Bob King

Unknown artist Publisher Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News

'The Australian Cricketers' from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News June 1882, page 2

'The Australian Cricketers' from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News June 1882

'The Australian Cricketers' from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News June 1882, 1882

Portrait, engravings on paper

Purchased 2009

George Judah Cohen, 1925

'How to be a surfing legend'

Gift of the National Australia Bank 2002

Nat Young

Albert Falzon's photograph of Australian surfer Nat Young captures what it is to be a surfing hero.

John Young

John Young, mezzotint engraver, studied under Valentine Green then worked with several of the painters who collaborated with Green, notably Benjamin West, John Hoppner and Johann Gerhard Huck.

1 portrait in the collection

Simone Young AM

Simone Young AM (b. 1961) is one of the leading conductors of her generation.

1 portrait in the collection

Angus Young

Angus Young (b. 1955), guitarist and songwriter, was a founding member of Australia's most successful ever band, AC/DC.

3 portraits in the collection

Sir John Young

Sir John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar (1807-1876), governor of New South Wales from 1861 to 1867, was the son of a director of the East India Co.

1 portrait in the collection

Nick Young

Portrait, papercut silhouette drawing

Full time professional artist represented by the Woollahra Times Gallery in Sydney and Hart Galleries in Queensland..

1 portrait in the collection

Ah Young, 2017

Pamela See

Purchased 2019

Bill Henson

Recorded 2021

Nat Young, c. 1968

Albert Falzon

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Witzig 2006

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004

Nat in Hawaii, 1967

John Witzig

Gift of the artist 2008

George Gittoes - last sitting before Peshawar

George Gittoes - last sitting before Peshawar, 2007

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2008

Simone Young, 2002

Portrait, triptych of type C photographs on on paper

Commissioned with funds from the Farrell Family Foundation and the Basil Bressler Bequest 2002

Sir John Young, c. 1862

Freeman Brothers

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Angus Young, 2003 (printed 2014)

Ingvar Kenne

Gift of the artist 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Simone Young

Simone Young

Angus Young, AC/DC, LA, 1978

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006

Simone Young

Bon Scott & Angus Young, Atlanta, Georgia

Bon Scott & Angus Young, Atlanta, Georgia, 1978 (printed 2010)

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Purchased 2010

Yaritji Tjingila Young, 2021

Robert Fielding

Previous exhibition, 2014

Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2022

Arcadia

Sound of the sea

An exhibition of photographs by John Witzig, drawings by Nicholas Harding and film footage by Albe Falzon, expressive of the free-spirited, hot-blooded energy of Australian surfers under the cloud of conscription to Vietnam.

Conduct becoming

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2017

Penelope Grist speaks to Bill Henson and Simone Young to discover the origins of the artist’s stunning photographic triptych.

No shirt, no service

The Illustrated London News after Jesse Young

Bon Scott and Angus Young photographed by Rennie Ellis are part of a display celebrating summer and images of the shirtless male.

The Australian exploring expedition travelling through scrub (from the Illustrated London News 1879)

The Australian exploring expedition travelling through scrub (from the Illustrated London News 1879), 1876

Portrait, wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2010

Lord Viscount Sydney, c. 1790

John Young after Gilbert Stuart

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Daddy Cool, Melbourne, 1974

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Purchased 2005

George Lambert

'Self Portrait with Gladioli'

An examination of the life and times of George Lambert through the gesture and pose in his self portrait.

Sir George Coles KT CBE

Sir George Coles CBE (1885–1977) was the founder of the retail concern GJ Coles and Coy.

1 portrait in the collection

George Moore

George Moore (1923-2008), champion jockey, was born in Mackay, Qld and was apprenticed in Brisbane in 1938.

1 portrait in the collection

George Nicholas CBE

George Nicholas CBE (1884-1960), pharmacist and philanthropist, grew up in South Australia and Victoria.

1 portrait in the collection

George Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

George Dance

George Dance the Younger, architect, was a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768.

4 portraits in the collection

George Barrable

George Hamilton Barrable was a painter of portraits and landscapes, active in London in the 1870s and 1880s, who exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy..

1 portrait in the collection

George Richmond

George Richmond, son of the miniature painter Thomas Richmond, grew up in London, took early artistic instruction from his father and enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools in 1824.

1 portrait in the collection

George Coates

George Coates, Melbourne-born artist, started his art career in a stained glass workshop, attending classes with Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery school at night.

1 portrait in the collection

George Spartels

George Spartels (b. 1954), actor, composer, musician and presenter, was a host on the ABC television children’s program Play School from 1985 to 1999.

1 portrait in the collection

King George V

George Frederick Ernest Albert, The Duke of Cornwall and York and later King George V (1865-1936), was the son of Edward VII, the man for whom the Edwardian era was named.

4 portraits in the collection

George Bellette

George Billett (also Bellett, Bellette and Billet, 1812–1885) was a farmer and landowner, an early settler of Sorell in Tasmania, and the son of two ex-convicts.

1 portrait in the collection

George Foxhill

George Foxhill studied art in his native Austria, attending the Kunstegewerbeschule and the Volkshochschule in Salzburg after the war.

1 portrait in the collection

George Fetting

George Fetting (b. 1964) is a Sydney-based photographer specialising in portrait, travel and editorial work.

8 portraits in the collection

George Romney

George Romney, painter, was born and trained in the north of England until 1762, when moved to London, where he exhibited at the Society of Arts and later at the Free Society and the Society of Artists.

2 portraits in the collection

George Johnston OBE

George Henry Johnston OBE (1912-1970), journalist and novelist, grew up in Elsternwick, a working-class suburb of Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

George A. Highland

George A Highland (1874-1954), theatrical producer, grew up in England, where, as a choirboy, he came to the attention of Arthur Sullivan.

1 portrait in the collection

George Bell OBE

George Bell studied in Melbourne and Paris, and was elected a member of the Modern Society of Portrait Painters, London, in 1908.

1 portrait in the collection

George Milpurrurru

George Milpurrurru (1934-1998), Ganalbingu (Yolgnu) painter, was one of the most important bark painters of the twentieth century.

1 portrait in the collection

George Gregan

George Gregan (b. 1973) is arguably the best rugby union half-back in the world today.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Grey

Sir George Grey (1812-1898), originally an explorer of the West Australian coast, became Governor of the near- bankrupt colony of South Australia in 1840.

2 portraits in the collection

George Molnar AO OBE

George Molnar AO OBE (1910–1998), cartoonist, artist, architect and social commentator, was born in Hungary and studied architecture at Budapest University, graduating in 1932.

1 portrait in the collection

George Garrard

George Garrard ARA, born in London, trained under the animal painter Sawrey Gilpin and enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools at the end of 1778.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Hayter

Sir George Hayter (1792-1871), English portrait and historical painter, studied briefly at the Royal Academy Schools as a teenager, running away to sea before returning to assist his father, an artist who tutored Princess Charlotte.

1 portrait in the collection

George Rose

George Rose, joint Secretary of the British Treasury at the time of the First Fleet, joined the civil service after leaving the Royal Navy in 1762.

1 portrait in the collection

George Bonnor

George Bonnor (1855–1912), cricketer, made his debut for Australia in the first official Test match between Australia and England, held at The Oval in September 1880.

1 portrait in the collection

George Baxter

George Baxter, a Londoner, is credited with inventing the first commercially viable colour printing process.

1 portrait in the collection

George Finey

George Finey, one of Australia's best-known cartoonists, was born in Auckland and was selling drawings to local newspapers by the time he was 14.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Fisher CMG

Sir George Fisher CMG (1903-2007), mining industry executive, began work at the Zinc Corporation at Broken Hill in 1925 after having completed a mining engineering degree in Adelaide.

1 portrait in the collection

Making Sense of Place #4 (Portrait of Professor George Seddon)

George Seddon AM

George Seddon AM (1927-2007), scholar and academic, studied English at Melbourne University before spending several years abroad, travelling and teaching at universities in Europe and North America.

1 portrait in the collection

Mr George Watson

George John Watson (1829–1906), racing entrepreneur, was born at Ballydarton in Co.

1 portrait in the collection

George Barrington

George Barrington (1755-1804) was the best-known 'gentleman thief' of late eighteenth-century London.

3 portraits in the collection

Sir George Knibbs CBE

Sir George Knibbs CBE (1858-1929), statistician, was born into a working-class Sydney family and nothing is known of his early education.

1 portrait in the collection

George Tjungurrayi

George Tjungurrayi (b. c. 1943–1947) is a highly respected senior Pintupi artist.

2 portraits in the collection

George Lambert

George Lambert (1873–1930), artist, was born in St Petersburg and lived in Germany and England before coming to Australia with his family at the age of fourteen.

7 portraits in the collection

George Gittoes AM

George Gittoes AM (b. 1949), artist, photographer and filmmaker, has documented some of the world's most notorious conflicts.

4 portraits in the collection

George Case

George Case (life dates unknown) and his wife Grace Egerton (d. 1881), variety performers, made several successful tours of Australia in the 1860s and 1870s, although the precise dates of their visits are unknown.

1 portrait in the collection

George Pell AC

George Pell AC (1941–2023), former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, was born and educated in Ballarat, Victoria.

1 portrait in the collection

George Perry

George William Perry (1824–1900) was born in London and arrived in Victoria via South Africa around 1852.

2 portraits in the collection

George Hurrell

George Hurrell, born in Kentucky, began his working life studying painting at the Art Institute of Chicago.

1 portrait in the collection

George Mealmaker

George Mealmaker (1768–1808), convict and activist, became involved in radical politics in his native Dundee in the 1780s.

1 portrait in the collection

George Brown

George Brown (1835-1917), clergyman, established numerous Methodist missions in the Pacific from the late 1880s.

1 portrait in the collection

George B. Kerferd

Eminent scientist Dame Bridget Ogilvie AC DBE FAA FRS (b. 1938) completed her undergraduate degree at the University of New England, graduating with the University Medal in 1960.

1 portrait in the collection

George Bell

Recorded 1965

George Finey

Recorded 1967

George Duncan

Recorded 1965

George Johnston

Recorded 1964

Emmanuel at bedtime, 2011

by George Mifsud

Blue Mountains escape, 2017

by George Voulgaropoulos

Portrait, oil and resin on canvas

"The determined" Self portrait, 2002

George Foxhill

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2007

Emma Hamilton

George Romney

Self portrait with gladioli, 1922

Gift of John Schaeffer AO 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Stephen and Angelo

George Andronicus, 1985 (printed 2018)

Gary Ede

Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018

Sir George Coles, 1935

W B McInnes

Gift of Coles Myer Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

George French Angas

George French Angas (1822-1886) was an artist and shell collector, who published many illustrations of the plants, native animals and peoples of the southern hemisphere.

2 portraits in the collection

George Baird Shaw

George Baird Shaw (1812-1883), painter and printmaker, arrived in Australia in 1856.

2 portraits in the collection

George Fordyce Story

Dr George Fordyce Story (1800-1885) was an English-born doctor who became district assistant surgeon in Van Diemen's Land.

1 portrait in the collection

George Moore, 1957

Portrait, pen and ink, brush and ink on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

George Lambert in London, c. 1912

Alf Vincent

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

George Judah Cohen

George Judah Cohen (1842-1937), banker, took over the Maitland office of his father's wholesale firm David Cohen and Co.

1 portrait in the collection

George Selth Coppin

George Coppin (1819-1906), comedian, entrepreneur and politician, cut his teeth in the world of the English itinerant theatre.

2 portraits in the collection

George Hoyningen-Huene

Baron George Hoyningen-Huene (1900–1968) was a high-profile American fashion photographer and Hollywood figure.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir George Hubert Wilkins

Sir George Hubert Wilkins (1888-1958), photographer, cinematographer, polar explorer and naturalist, spent his childhood on a farm in South Australia and became interested in photography while studying engineering and music at the University of Adelaide.

1 portrait in the collection

Frederick George Reynolds

Frederick George Reynolds was born in London, the son of a watercolourist, Frederick G Reynolds senior, who was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy.

1 portrait in the collection

George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga

George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga (1957–2007) was a Yolngu singer, activist and a founding member of the Warumpi Band.

2 portraits in the collection

George Milpurrurru, 1986

Purchased 2005

Alfred George Stephens

Alfred George Stephens (1865–1933), editor, journalist and publisher, was born and educated in Toowoomba.

1 portrait in the collection

George Gotardo Foletta

George Gotardo Foletta CMG (1892-1973), manufacturer, worked as a travelling salesman for his father, a fancy goods commission agent, before setting up the Atlas Knitting and Spinning Mills Pty Ltd in Brunswick in 1920.

2 portraits in the collection

George Michael Prendergast

Portrait, papercut silhouette drawing

George Michael Prendergast (1854-1937), printer and premier, was born to an Irish goldminer and his wife and was apprenticed to the printer of the Pleasant Creek News in 1868.

1 portrait in the collection

George Chow Bow, 2017

Pamela See

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019

George Highland, 1925

Tom Glover

Portrait, etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

George Mealmaker, 1798 (printed c. 1838)

John Kay

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Lee Lin Chin, 2004 (printed 2021)

Gift of the artist 2021

William Morris

George Frederic Watts

Self portrait, 1846

George French Angas

Portrait, ink and gouache on paper

Purchased 1999

Federal Statistician Knibbs, 1919

David Low

Purchased 2011

Self portrait, 1858-1860

George Fordyce Story

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on paper

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

George Reid paperweight, c. 1910

unknown artist

Portrait, painted cast iron

Purchased 2006

George Reid paperweight, c. 1910

unknown artist

Portrait, painted cast iron

Purchased 2001

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V)

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V), 1903

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V), 1903

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

George Spartels, early 1970s

Ivan Gaal

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2019

George Langley, 1918

James McBey

Portrait, conte on paper

Gift of Pat Lesslie (née Langley), in memory of George Langley and Rob Lesslie 2015

George Sands, c. 1940s

Portrait, oil on hessian laid on cardboard

Purchased 2011

George Duncan, c. 1940

Alison Rehfisch

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Margaret Adams 1999

Portrait of George Selth Coppin, c. 1895-1899

Tom Roberts

Portrait, oil on cedar panel

Purchased with funds provided by Mary Isabel Murphy 2004

George Molnar, 1983

Judy Cassab AO CBE

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on masonite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

George Miller, 2002 (printed 2004)

Karin Catt

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

George Trott (George Henry Stevens (Harry) Trott, member of the 1896 Australian Cricket Team)

George Henry Stevens Trott

George Henry Stevens (Harry) Trott (1866–1917) was the captain of the Australian cricket team which toured England and then to the USA and New Zealand from June to November 1896.

1 portrait in the collection

George Johnston, Fleet Street, London, c. 1952 (printed 2000)

David Moore

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
The series 'David Moore: From Face to Face' was acquired as a gift of the artist and with financial assistance from Timothy Fairfax AC and L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001

Sir George Grey, c. 1845

Theresa Walker

Portrait, cast wax

Purchased 1999

George Tjungurrayi, 2002

Matthÿs Gerber

Gift of Pamela Hansford 2007. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

George Lambert, c. 1929

Annie May Moore

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

George Tjungurrayi, 2007

Portrait, inkjet print on cotton rag paper

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2020. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Herbert Benjamin George Larkin CBE

Herbert Benjamin George Larkin CBE (c. 1871- 1944), shipping administrator, came to Australia from England and joined the office of the Australian Steam Navigation Company.

1 portrait in the collection

Cardinal George Pell, 2007 (printed 2012)

David Roberts

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Sir George Houston Reid GCB GCMG KC

Sir George Houstoun Reid GCB GCMG KC (1845-1918) was Australian prime minister from August 1904 to July 1905.

3 portraits in the collection

George Gittoes, 1999

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

Sir George Fisher, n.d.

Louis Kahan AO

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

George Barrington, 1820

John Chapman

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

George Gittoes, 1991

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

George Nicholas, 1955

Paul Fitzgerald AM

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Hilton Nicholas AM OBE 2010

George Bell, 1951

Louis Kahan AO

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998

George Michael Prendergast, 1926

Tom Glover

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on studio card inside studio folder

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Reverend George Brown DD, 1905

Crown Studios

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Nancy Joyce 2014

Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V), 1901

Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on original studio backing card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Making Sense of Place #4 (Portrait of Professor George Seddon), 2007

Peteris Ciemitis

Portrait, watercolour and pastel on paper

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

Portrait of a beautiful mind - Adam Cullen, Blue Mountains

Portrait of a beautiful mind - Adam Cullen, Blue Mountains, 2005 (printed 2019)

Purchased with funds provided by Alan Dodge AM & Neil Archibald 2019

John Waters, 2013

Gift of the artist 2015

Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal Tribe, 1992 (printed 2009)

Gift of the artist 2010

Robyn Archer, 1990

George Gittoes AM

Gift of Robyn Archer AO 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Gulpilil (David) Dreaming - Kakadu 2006, 2006

Gift of the artist 2008

Facing Facts

Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers describes the 1922 Self-portrait with Gladioli by George Lambert.

Errol Flynn, 1938 (printed 2008)

George Hurrell

Gift of Michael Desmond 2012

Tender tragedies

George Foxhill's self portraits were the subject of a small focus display at the National Portrait Gallery in 2006.

Henry Fullwood (Uncle Remus), 1919

Portrait, pencil on paper

Gift of Denis Savill 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Courage, Self-analysis and Skill

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2002

The story behind George Lambert's Self-portrait with Gladioli.

Tony Bilson, c. 2005

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Tony Bilson 2008

Andrew Gaze, 2018

Magazine article by Tedi Bills, 2016

Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018

Love City; George Gittoes on hilltop 2013

Man of war

Tedi Bills talks to George Gittoes about canvassing conflict.

Money and swat

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2007

Andrew Sayers discusses the real cost of George Lambert's Self portrait with gladioli 1922.

Charles Windeyer, c. 1846-1849

George B. Goodman

Portrait, daguerreotype

Gift of the Windeyer family 2009

Portrait of Norman Lindsay as a student, c. 1896

George Coates

Portrait, oil on cardboard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Reverend John Williams, c. 1837

George Baxter

Portrait, wood engraving (Baxter print) on paper

Purchased 2012

Reverend William Singleton, 1866

George Perry

Portrait, albumen print photograph, carte de visite format on paper on card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Anna Frances Walker, c. 1865

George Perry

Purchased 2022

Victor Albert George Child-Villiers

Victor Albert George Child-Villiers (1845-1915) succeeded his father George Augustus (1808-1859), 6th earl, who had only held the title for three weeks, as 7th earl of Jersey in 1859.

1 portrait in the collection

George Gregan, 1999 (printed 2001)

Peter Brew-Bevan

Purchased 2001

George Foletta,

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Alice Myra Foletta 2006

Western Australia (Sir Frederick Bedford)

Sir Frederick George Denham Bedford GCB GCVO

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

Sir Frederick George Denham Bedford GCB GCVO (1838–1913) was governor of Western Australia from 1903 to 1909.

1 portrait in the collection

The Multifarious Career of George Selth Coppin

George Selth Coppin (1819-1906) comedian, impresario and entrepreneur, was a driving force of the early Australian theatre.

George Selth Coppin, c. 1863

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Mantuwa Tjungarra George, 2021

Robert Fielding

Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2022

Sir George Grey, Governor of New Zealand, 1861

William-Wolfe Alais

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008

A Premier "The New Man" [The Hon. George Briscoe Kerferd], 1874

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

George Urquhart (Scotty) Allan, 1954

Gift of Danina Dupain Anderson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Andrew Gaze

'Make it fun'

Basketballer Andrew Gaze and photographer George Fetting.

Master of the Hunt "Steady, Gentlemen, Steady!" [Mr George Watson], 1874

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2010

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Celebrity cutpurse

Grace Carroll discusses the portrait of the late-eighteenth century gentleman pickpocket George Barrington.

Marcie Elizabeth Wilson, 1922

Portrait, pencil on paper

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

A G Stephens, c. 1910 (printed later)

Portrait, albumen photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Mr and Mrs Case, 1864

Alexander Fox and Co

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Sir Hubert Wilkins, 1933

Irving Browning

Purchased 2009

H.B.G Larkin, 1928

L E. Reynolds

George S Bryant & Co, Boston

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Album of portraits of family of William Taylor Macpherson

Album of portraits of family of William Taylor Macpherson, c. 1880

Portrait, 39 tintype photographs in an album

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the family of FW Macpherson 2012

South Australian Illustrated (Plate 35), 1847

George French Angas, Thomas McLean

Portrait, Lithograph

George Trott (George Henry Stevens (Harry) Trott, member of the 1896 Australian Cricket Team), 1896

H Parker Rolfe

Portrait, albumen photograph on cabinet card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2014

The sculptor (George Lambert and Arthur Murch)

The sculptor (George Lambert and Arthur Murch), c. 1929

Harold Cazneaux

Purchased 2015

George Hoyningen-Huene and Jessie the Barmaid, 1937

John Cochran after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Gift of Danina Dupain Anderson 2021. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Lt. Genrl. the Rt Honble. Sir George Murray G.C.B., G.C.H. &c.

Lt. Genrl. the Rt Honble. Sir George Murray G.C.B., G.C.H. &c., 1838

Dickinson Monteath Studio

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

George Foletta, n.d.

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Alice Myra Foletta 2006

Sir George Reid, c. 1895

Nelson Illingworth

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

H.M. King George V at his desk, c. 1921

E.O. Hoppé, Raphael Tuck and Sons Ltd

Portrait, postcard print on card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2020

Francis Russell Nixon, c. 1845-1855

an unknown artist after George Richmond

Portrait, copperplate engraving, heightened with China white on buff paper

Purchased 2009

Jack Lang, c. 1930-1940

George Finey

Portrait, collage of coloured paper, pencil on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Charles Warman Roberts, 1878

George Baird Shaw

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Thoms family 2011

Annie Roberts, 1878

George Baird Shaw

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2007

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Reg, Lesley, Glen and Paul Thoms 2011

Two painters

Chris Chapman explains how Matthys Gerber bridges the gap between abstraction and portraiture.

Real close

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2012

Peter Ciemitis breached regulations when creating the portrait of the polymath environmental scientist George Seddon.

Sir Joseph Banks, 1811

Portrait, soft ground etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Robert Henderson Croll, 1927

Frederick George Reynolds

Portrait, oil on canvas on board

Gift of Grietje Croll in memory of her late husband Robert Devereaux Croll and with the endorsement of his daughter Helen Croll 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Alexander Dalrymple, 1809

Portrait, soft ground etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family 2012

The Right Honourable Lord Viscount Melbourne

The Right Honourable Lord Viscount Melbourne, 1839

Charles Turner after Sir George Hayter

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Australian Cricket (George John Bonnor), 1884

Purchased 2013

George Burarrwanga, Warumpi Band, 1984 (printed 2021)

Juno Gemes

Purchased 2021

Sir George Ferguson Bowen, c. 1873

Bardwell's Royal Studio

Purchased with funds provided by Graham Smith 2009

Vice-Royalty. "A Quoter of Poetry" [George Bowen, Governor of Victoria], 1873

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Warumpi Band, Sydney Opera House, 1984 (printed 2021)

Juno Gemes

George Beldam, Sun Electric Engraving Company

Purchased 2021

Victor Trumper, 1905

Portrait, photogravure on paper

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

Professor George Dracoulis, 1996

Robin Wallace-Crabbe, Dianne Fogwell

Portrait, etching

Gift of the artist 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

David Brown Dignam [and] George Barrington drawn from the life

David Brown Dignam [and] George Barrington drawn from the life, 1777

an unknown artist, The London Magazine

Portrait, copperplate engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

The Right Honourable Charles Lord Hawkesbury, Chancellor of the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster

The Right Honourable Charles Lord Hawkesbury, Chancellor of the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster, 1788

John Murphy after George Romney

Magazine article by Gareth Knapman, 2017

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

The Conciliation, 1840 by Benjamin Duterrau

The art of conciliation

Gareth Knapman explores the politics and opportunism behind the portraits of Tasmania’s Black War.

The Right Honourable Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White Squadron

The Right Honourable Viscount Keppel, Admiral of the White Squadron, 1802

William Ridley, Bunney & Gold after George Romney

Goupil & Cie after Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples, George Barrable

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

Australia v England, 1887

Portrait, photogravure on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

All in the Family

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2002

Portrait launch of Major-General Paul Cullen AC CBE DSO and Bar ED (Rtd) and George Judah Cohen.

Statesmen No. 83 "By birth a man, by inheritance a Marquis and a Governor by his Sovereign's favour, he fills all his positions with credit" (Marquis of Normanby), 1871

an unknown artist, J Bird & Simmonds

Gift of Mr Ronald Walker 2001

The Memoirs of George Barrington, 1790

Portrait, octavo in fours, with an engraved frontispiece

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008

New South Wales (Earl of Jersey Victor Albert George Child-Villiers), 1890

Sir Leslie Ward, Vanity Fair Magazine

Sir Leslie Ward, Vanity Fair Magazine

Gift of Mr Ronald Walker 2001

Western Australia (Sir Frederick Bedford), 1903

Portrait, albumen silver photograph

Purchased 2015

The First Ministry under Responsible Government in New South Wales

The First Ministry under Responsible Government in New South Wales, 1856

Freeman Brothers

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009

Profile of a marriage

Giovanni Vendramini, T Cadell & W Davies after William Evans, Sir William Beechey

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.

George Rose, 1811

Thomas Morris, M N. Bates, Joseph C. Stadler after George Garrard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Woburn Sheepshearing, 1811

Portrait, aquatint with stipple and etching and engraving, hand coloured on chine colle on paper laid down on cotton stretched over wooden strainer

Purchased 2018

William Hodges RA, 1808 (dated 1810)

Portrait, etching on paper

Purchased 2010

William Westall, 1854

Portrait, etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

George and Jemima Billet with family, c. 1852

C.H.T. Costantini

Purchased 2016

The Sands Brothers, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Professor Gilbert Murray, OM, Oxford, c. 1957 (printed 2000)

David Moore

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2001. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
The series 'David Moore: From Face to Face' was acquired as a gift of the artist and with financial assistance from Timothy Fairfax AC and L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2001.

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

Portrait, offset print (tipped in), letter press (greeting), pen and ink (signature), embossed (royal emblem) on cardboard

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

Portrait of a young Aussie, Matuse Peace, 2016

by John McRae

Brainwave interactive artwork by George Khut

Behind your eyes, between your ears

Previous exhibition, 2016

As the subject changes the quality of their attention and mental focus, the portrait transforms, both appearance and sound.

George and Donny, 2008

by Justin Spiers

George Foxhill

Self Portraits

Portrait, oil on galvanised iron

Foxhill's portraits are more concerned with describing an emotional and psychological state than the surface topography of the human face.

Young Mo (Roy Rene), 1977

Martin Sharp

Gift of Richard Wherrett 1998. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Portrait of the artist as a young man

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the early life and career of John Brack.

Portrait of Dr Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster

Portrait of Dr Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster, c. 1780

Jean Francois Rigaud

Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family, the Ian Potter Foundation and John Schaeffer AO 2009

Andrew Gaze, 2018

by George Fetting

Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018

Lord George Stuart, 9th Seigneur of Aubigny

Sir Anthony van Dyck

Sir William Beechey

Sir William Beechey, portrait painter and pupil of Johann Zoffany, was greatly influenced by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

1 portrait in the collection

Bon Scott and Angus Young, AC/DC

Bob King

Young Mo (Roy Rene)

'The artist's notebook'

An interview with Australian artist and collector of quirky artefacts, Martin Sharp.

Young Australian #3, 2009

by Vittoria Dussoni

Portrait of a young man, held to be John Robertson

Portrait of a young man, held to be John Robertson, c. 1852

Portrait, daguerreotype, hand coloured

Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Young girl in a dance class waiting to be photographed, 2010

by John Slaytor

Nikki – Yurrkan Mantangka Ngargnyi – coll 1 (Nikki – young woman on Country)

Martine Perret

Nothing black and white about the Greys

Marriage: a prolonged disaster

Cullabaa, native of Lake George, Five Islands tribe

Cullabaa, native of Lake George, Five Islands tribe, 1836

William Fernyhough

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

Men of the Day No. 27 "La Reyne le veult" (Sir John George Shaw-Lefevre), 1871

Purchased 2015

Knox Rocket, 2018

by Natalie Nowotarsk

B Roger after Nicolas-Martin Petit

Nouvelle-Hollane: N.lle Galles de Sud. Ourou-Maraé, dit bull-dog par leas Anglais, Jeune guerrier de la Tribu des Gwea-Gal (New Holland: New South Wales. Ouron Marae, called Bull Dog by the English. a young Warrior of the Gwea Gal tribe)

Nouvelle-Hollane: N.lle Galles de Sud. Ourou-Maraé, dit bull-dog par leas Anglais, Jeune guerrier de la Tribu des Gwea-Gal (New Holland: New South Wales. Ouron Marae, called Bull Dog by the English. a young Warrior of the Gwea Gal tribe), c. 1800

Portrait, colour printed stipple engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Rayner Hoff, 1924

Harold Cazneaux

Gift of Richard King 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Suze DeMarchi, Baby Animals, St George Leagues Club, 1991

Tony Mott

Sir Arthur Coles, c. 1971

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Coles Myer Ltd 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Stevie Wright

Stevie Wright (1947-2015), singer songwriter, came to Australia from England at the age of nine.

2 portraits in the collection

Norm Provan

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

Norm Provan (1932-2021), footballer and coach, played junior rugby league for Sutherland and trialled unsuccessfully for Eastern Suburbs before being signed by the St George Dragons in 1951.

1 portrait in the collection

Death mask of George Melville courtesy of National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Old Melbourne Gaol Collection

A colourful story from Sideshow Alley

From infamous bushranger to oyster shop display, curator Jo Gilmour explores the life of George Melville.

American dream leads to tragic end

Young love lost, treasured

Boyca dharraka mayung ngurr gartji. Lardum ratjuk gurr (Boyca at Mayung Creek, Gartji. Hunting for barramundi)

Cassandra Scott-Finn

Becky feeding Hazel, 2012

by Louise Allerton

Fifteen, 2016

by Fiona Morris

London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company

The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company was founded in 1854 by George Swan Nottage.

2 portraits in the collection

Clem Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

Alfie Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

Russell Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

Dave Sands

Clem, George, David, Alfie and Russell Sands were members of one of Australia's most famous sporting families.

2 portraits in the collection

Mr King was once on Countdown, 2010

by Ben Searcy

Previous exhibition, 2001

Headspace 2

A dynamic young people's art exhibition, Hearts/Heads: Headspace II explored portraiture, produced by students from year 7 to year 12

Tribute

Stevie Wright

Magazine article, 2016

Stevie Wright (1947-2015), singer-songwriter, came to Australia from England at the age of nine.

Sayeh: from the series Iranians, 2011

by Aletheia Casey

Magazine article by Jessica Smith, 2009

Sketches and sermons

Jessica Smith looks at the 'fetching' portrait of Tasmania's first Anglican Bishop, Francis Russell Nixon by George Richmond

Frank McIlwraith

Frank McIlwraith was the London representative for the Australian periodical Smith's Weekly in the late 1930s.

1 portrait in the collection

Matthew Reilly

Matthew Reilly (b. 1974) is a successful writer of popular fiction novels, characterised by suspenseful narratives and futuristic scenarios.

1 portrait in the collection

Study of male ballet dancers standing in a line

Study of male ballet dancers standing in a line, 2007

Portrait, charcoal and pastel on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Portrait of a Girl Eating, 2006

by Leyla Stevens

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary)

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary), 1903

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary), 1903

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary), 1903

Magazine article by Peter Brew-Bevan, 2004

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter Roberts 2015

In the most correct style

Nearest & Dearest

Desirable outcomes, undesirable origins

In Sync

Peter Brew-Bevan discusses two experiences where his plans for his portraits produced surprising results.

Sir Edgar Barton ‘EB’ Coles

Sir Edgar Barton ‘EB’ Coles (1899-1981) was the longest-serving chief executive of the Coles retail group.

2 portraits in the collection

Study of female ballet dancers, 2007

Portrait, charcoal and pastel on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Study of a pair of ballet dancers, 2007

Portrait, charcoal and pastel on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Larry Clark

Tough & Tender

December 2007 - February 2008

Larry Clark's black-and-white documentary images of young outsiders reveal raw feelings.

Portrait 26

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Matthew Perceval, Tom Uren, George Tjungurrayi, silhouette portraiture, pop art portraits and more.

Charles Kean

Edward Scriven, J B Ball & J DeCamp after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Charles Kean (1811-1868), actor, threw in his Eton education when his mother was deserted by his penniless father, the tragedian Edmund Kean.

1 portrait in the collection

Rt. Honourable Lord Hawkesbury, 1808

September - November 2006

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

Portrait 21

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Margaret Cameron, the 'Truth and Likeness' exhibition, Reg Mombassa, Patrick White, George Foxhill and more.

John Witzig

John Witzig, photographer, writer and designer, contributed his first piece to Surfing World in 1963.

5 portraits in the collection

Treading Water, 2017

by Josh Owen

Finalist, DPA 2017
Single channel digital video

Jessie Whyte

Jessie Whyte (née Walker, 1779–1864). Born in Berwickshire, Scotland, Jessie married George Whyte (d.

1 portrait in the collection

Jeremiah Ware

Jeremiah Ware (1792–1878) arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1822 with his wife, Mary (née Brooks, c.

1 portrait in the collection

Mary Ware

Jeremiah Ware (1792–1878) arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1822 with his wife, Mary (née Brooks, c.

1 portrait in the collection

Julia Matthews

Julia Matthews (1842-1876), actress and singer, came to Australia as a girl with her parents, and made her debut at Sydney's Royal Victoria Theatre in 1854, aged twelve.

1 portrait in the collection

G. H. Dancey

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

Artist in residence creates portraits using brainwave zctivity

29 June 2016

Digital media artist, George Khut, is creating a spectacular form of digital portraiture involving public participants.

William Evans

The draftsman and engraver William Evans reproduced many of Sir William Beechey’s portraits including that of King George..

3 portraits in the collection

Portrait 4

June - August 2002

September - November 2004

This issue of Portrait Magazine features articles on Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, George Lambert's self-portrait, Professor Peter Doherty, the man behind the Dr. Who theme, and more.

Portrait 13

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Nancy Wake, Jon Campbell's portrait of Paul Kelly, George Selth Coppin, Henri Cartier-Bresson and more.

Noah Taylor

Noah Taylor (b. 1969) left school at 16 to join Melbourne's St Martin's Youth Theatre.

1 portrait in the collection

Madame Praeger

Laura Praeger (née Blundell) was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and was about twelve years old when her father brought his family to Australia, settling in Queensland.

1 portrait in the collection

Adela R. Walker

Adela Russell Walker (1847–1932), the youngest of her parents' thirteen children, was born in Longford and was 22 when she married George Coleridge Nixon, who was the son of Francis Russell Nixon – an amateur artist and Anglican Bishop of Tasmania from 1843 to 1862.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, 1921

Thea Proctor

Purchased with funds provided by the Ross family in memory of Noel and Enid Eliot 2013

Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool

Previous exhibition, 2020

Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool (1729–1808), statesman, was educated at Oxford and entered parliament in 1761.

1 portrait in the collection

Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe

Shirley Purdie

Using ochres collected on her country in Western Australia’s East Kimberley, Shirley Purdie’s self-portrait is a kaleidoscope of traditional Gija stories and Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) passed down to her.

Bill Henson

'Scale and presence'

Photographer Bill Henson describes creating his three part portrait of Simone Young.

Lleyton Hewitt, 1998

Robin Sellick

Gift of the artist 2004

James Heath

James Heath commenced an apprenticeship with an engraver named Joseph Collyer at the age of fourteen.

2 portraits in the collection

Dave Sands, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Jemima Bellette

George Billett (also Bellett, Bellette and Billet, 1812–1885) was a farmer and landowner, an early settler of Sorell in Tasmania, and the son of two ex-convicts.

1 portrait in the collection

The Murdoch

Moustaches

Sport was a potent means by which, in the lead up to Federation, Australians began to assert a sense of themselves as youthful, manly and athletic – the products of an equally young and virile new nation.

Queen Mary

George Frederick Ernest Albert, The Duke of Cornwall and York and later King George V (1865-1936), was the son of Edward VII, the man for whom the Edwardian era was named.

3 portraits in the collection

John Marsden

John Marsden (b. 1950), children's writer and social commentator, grew up in country Victoria and Tasmania and then attended the Kings School in Parramatta.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir William Windeyer

Sir William Windeyer (1834-1897) was a politician and judge. One of the first undergraduates to study at the University of Sydney, he developed a particular interest in education and the rights of women - he was responsible for the Married Women's Property Act of 1879, and was Founding Chairman of the university's Women's College.

4 portraits in the collection

Charles Abraham

Charles Abraham, son of a London architect, trained at the Royal Academy schools under the sculptor Sierier, and for a further three years in Paris and Rome.

1 portrait in the collection

John Davis

Alan Davies' and Peter Stanbury's The Mechanical Eye in Australia lists Sydney photographer John Davis (life dates unknown) as having a carte-de visite studio on King Street, and as working from addresses on Pitt and George Streets between 1870 and 1873..

1 portrait in the collection

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (1900–2002) was born the Honourable Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon.

2 portraits in the collection

The World of Thea Proctor

The World of Thea Proctor is the Portrait Gallery's second major biographical exhibition - that is, the second exhibition to focus exclusively on the life and work of a single individual

Tarcissius, 2006

by Heide Smith

Portrait 58

Summer 2017-18

Paul Cézanne, Bill Henson and Simone Young, Australian cinema’s iconic women, and feminist portraits by Kate Just.

Thea Proctor

Thea Proctor (1879–1966), artist and stylesetter, trained at the Julian Ashton School before leaving Australia for London in 1903.

3 portraits in the collection

Kondelea Elliott

Kondelea Elliott (1917–2011), union official and women's rights lobbyist, was the daughter of a Greek migrant father, Nicholas Xenodohos, who had come from the Queensland canefields via Sydney, and an Australian mother who had left school at the age of eight and performed in a circus.

1 portrait in the collection

Family portrait

Fiona Bowring

Portraits & Other Stories

Sam Haskins

Haskins is known for his poetic combinations of images and this exhibition of 'extended' portraits builds on this approach.

Jessie Sinden

Portrait, glass plate negative

Jessie Sinden was a barmaid at the Brooklyn Hotel on George Street in Sydney when she was 'discovered' by Baron George Hoyningen-Huene, a high-profile American fashion photographer and Hollywood figure.

1 portrait in the collection

Backstage on the way to the top

Passion

Living for the moment

Trukanini, 1866 (printed 1890s)

Charles Woolley

Purchased 2011

The Cosmopolitans

In Gallery Two

Spanning the 1880s to the 1930s, this collection display celebrates the innovations in art – and life – introduced by the generation of Australians who travelled to London and Paris for experience and inspiration in the decades either side of 1900.

Sir Thomas Lawrence

Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) was one of the leading portrait painters of the Georgian era.

8 portraits in the collection

Amanda, 2017

by Bill Gekas

Portrait, etching, hand coloured on paper

The great South Sea caterpillar transformed into a Bath Butterfly (Sir Joseph Banks)

The great South Sea caterpillar transformed into a Bath Butterfly (Sir Joseph Banks), 1795 (printed 1851)

James Gillray

Gift of Douglas Stewart Fine Books 2013

Percy, Reginald, Monty and George Faithfull, undated by Henry Dorner. Image courtesy the National Museum of Australia.

An affray which deserves particular mention

Ben Hall and his gang outdone, 6 February 1865

Bushranger Ben Hall and his cronies held around 40 people hostage in a pub north-west of Goulburn, telling their captives ‘don’t be alarmed; we only came here for a bit of fun’.

The Australian Cricket Team 1882

The Australian cricket team of 1882 was the third side to tour England and the team whose defeat of England at The Oval in August of that year initiated the 'The Ashes' Test series.

1 portrait in the collection

Gail Kelly

Gail Kelly (b. 1956), former banking executive, was born in South Africa and gained degrees in arts and education from the University of Cape Town before working as a high-school Latin teacher.

1 portrait in the collection

The Perch Creek Family Jugband, 2008

by John Van-Den-Broeke

Irina Baronova (handing on the baton), 2007

Portrait, encaustic, oil and pigment on composition board

Gift of the J Sages Family Trust 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Julian Rossi Ashton, 1933

Eric Wilson

Portrait, charcoal on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Philip Bacon AM 2012

McLean Edwards, 2006

by Gary Grealy

Rowan Thomas, 2015

by Graham Caughley

Portrait of Zachary

Grace Costa

Previous exhibition, 2017

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017

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.

Thomas Wentworth Wills

Robert Kermode

Robert Quayle Kermode (1812-1870), politician, was born on the Isle of Man and educated at Castletown.

1 portrait in the collection

Linda and Binni, 1984 (printed 2013)

Purchased 2013

Jean Goldberg

Jean Nethercote (now Goldberg) first met Ola Cohn when she took a life class in Cohn's studio in the mid-50s.

1 portrait in the collection

Trukanini

Trukanini (c. 1812–1876) is arguably nineteenth century Australia’s most celebrated Indigenous leader.

6 portraits in the collection

Jason Yat-sen Li

Jason Yat-Sen Li (b. 1972) was born to parents who came to Australia from China in 1959.

1 portrait in the collection

The Hinders: doyens of Australian modernism

Passion

Progressive partnership

Sir William Charles Windeyer, 1892

Tom Roberts

Gift of the family of Sir Victor and Lady Windeyer 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Ryan Presley: Paradise won

Current exhibition

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.

Gail Kelly, 2018

Paul Newton

Commissioned with funds provided by Westpac Group and Optus 2018

Rayner Hoff

George Rayner Hoff (1894-1937), sculptor, was born in England and trained at the Royal College of Art, London.

2 portraits in the collection

Nancy Menetrey

Portrait, coloured chalk on artist board

Nancy Menetrey (née Wilkinson) was born in Sydney in 1924. After serving with the Australian Women's Land Army, formed during the Second World War to address labour shortages in the agricultural sector, she travelled overseas in the early 1950s, living and working in London for a number of years.

1 portrait in the collection

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), 1943-1944

Charles Wheeler

Purchased 2019

Omai

Omai (Mai) (c. 1750-1778), the first Polynesian to visit Britain, was a young man of middling social standing who volunteered to sail from Huahine to England with Captain Furneaux on the Adventure (the ship accompanying James Cook's Resolution on Cook's second voyage of discovery (1772-1775).

2 portraits in the collection

The Gladiators (Norm Provan and Arthur Summons), 1963 (printed 1970s)

John O'Gready

Portrait, steel engraving with later hand-colouring on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Wylie, 1840-1841

Robert Neill

Purchased 2018

Martha Knox, c. 1855

Portrait, daguerreotype

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010

To coin a (farewell) phrase

A penny for their thoughts

Meredith Rogers

Meredith Rogers, theatre director and academic, studied at the University of Melbourne and worked between 1974 and 1979 with Kiffy Rubbo at the Ewing and George Paton Galleries.

1 portrait in the collection

Keenan

Emma Pegrum

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite photograph

Madame Sibly, Phrenologist and Mesmerist

Madame Sibly, Phrenologist and Mesmerist, c. 1870

James E. Bray

Purchased 2017

John Darling

John Darling (1923-2015), businessman, company director and media producer was the son of Harold Gordon Darling, chair of BHP.

1 portrait in the collection

Adelaide, Königin von Grossbritranien u Irland

Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen

Thinking of something, someone

Adelaide of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen (1792–1849) was the consort of King William IV of England.

1 portrait in the collection

Gulgawarnigu

In partnership with Big hART we are proud to present Gulgawarnigu - Thinking of something, someone, a national presentation of digital artworks created from Ngarluma country leramagadu (Roebourne), in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Barry, 2006

by Bronek Kozka

Peter van der Veer

Peter van der Veer, photographer, designer and painter, studied at Prahran College in the 1970s.

1 portrait in the collection

Stevie Wright, 1975 (printed 2011)

Gary Ede

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Shane Balcomb aka. Sasha Trajik-Mole, drag queen, 2011

by David Kelly

Stop in all the byways, playin' rock 'n roll

Guthugga Pipeline, Christmas Show, upstairs, The (old) Griffin Centre, Civic, 22 December 1979. Crowd, L-R : Ben Donaldson, Anne Redmond, Nick Vollis, Esa Makela, Megan Woodrow (Mohawk), Andy Hall (scarf) 'pling

Capital Cool

Outsiders tend to give Canberra a bad rap: sterile, plagued by politicians, a comatose capital for professionals and academics. Nick Cave once said he didn’t like the city because there were too many punks.

Hattie Shepparde, 1872

Bardwell's Royal Studio

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

Bangardidjan

Renae Saxby

J.W. Beattie after Charles Woolley

Trukanini, n.d.

Portrait, albumen silver photograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Allanah Dopson and Nicholas Heyward 2009

Julian Ashton CBE

Julian Rossi Ashton CBE (1851-1942), art teacher, artist and critic, trained in art in London and at the Académie Julian in Paris before coming to Australia to work on the Illustrated Australian News in 1878.

4 portraits in the collection

Johann Zoffany

Johann Zoffany, painter of portraits and conversation pieces, grew up in the court of the Prince von Thurn und Taxis in Germany, where his father was employed.

1 portrait in the collection

Tom Durkin

Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM, Tjanpi Desert Weavers

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

Ngayulu Minyma Tjanpinya, I am a Tjanpi Woman

Ngayulu Minyma Tjanpinya, I am a Tjanpi Woman, 2018

Portrait, Tjanpi (dry grass), acrylic wool, raffia, wire

Purchased 2022

Ivan and Lillian, 2012

by Margot Sharman

Lady Maisie Drysdale

Lady Maisie Drysdale (1915–2001), children's librarian and artists' muse, developed an interest in art as a child, and attended both the University of Melbourne and George Bell's art school.

1 portrait in the collection

Julian Ashton Life Class, 1920

Harold Cazneaux

Purchased 2015

In Doubt, 2017

by Eva Collins

Zareth, 2009

by Scott Bycroft

Russell Sands, n.d.

Purchased 2011

Alfie Sands, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Clem Sands, c. 1940s

Purchased 2011

Annie May Moore

Annie May Moore (1881-1931) was born in New Zealand and studied at the Elam School of Art and Design in Auckland.

5 portraits in the collection

Bon Scott

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Ronald 'Bon' Scott (1946-1980) had come to Australia with his family in 1952, aged six, had lived in Melbourne and Fremantle, where he joined a pipe band; had dropped out of school at fifteen; and had spent some time in custody.

1 portrait in the collection

Trucaninny [Trukanini], wife of Woureddy [Wurati]

Trucaninny [Trukanini], wife of Woureddy [Wurati], 1836

Benjamin Law

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Geoff Cousins, 2017

David Naseby

Gift of Geoff Cousins AM 2007

Thomas Forster Knox

The Knox's third son, Thomas Forster Knox (1849-1919) followed his father and older brother into business, and became prominent in the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Danny, 2013

by Daniel Arnaldi

Photographed by Nathalie Latham

Steven Bishop, performer by Nathalie Latham

Australia's Creative Diaspora

Previous exhibition, 2007

Paris based Australian photographer and filmmaker Nathalie Latham has an ongoing interest in the creative achievements of other Australian artists living in various locations around the globe.

Lina Bryans

Lina Bryans OAM (1909-2000), artist, was born into a prosperous Melbourne family and grew up moving freely between Toorak and Europe.

3 portraits in the collection

Handing on the baton

Previous exhibition, 2011

Michael Desmond explores the life of ballerina Irina Baranova through the portrait by Australian artist Jenny Sages.

Tea time, c.1898–1902 by Rupert Bunny (1864–1947)

Impressions

Painting light and life

Impressions: Painting light and life presents portraits by, and of, artists at the heart of Australian impressionism including Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin.

Shirley Purdie

Contributing artists

Born: 1947, Gilbun – Mabel Downs Station, WA
Works: Warmun, WA

Eleni and the bookshop

Tracy Ponich

Sophie at 17

Ilana Rose

Shahleena Musk, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

Malala Yousafzai

Shirin Neshat

2022 Annual Appeal

Annual Appeal

In 2022 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Mayatjara by Robert Fielding, a series of 24 photographs of Elders of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara community.

The Swiss Studios, Sydney

Gettin’ robbed, gettin’ stoned, gettin’ beat up, broken boned

The Swiss Studios opened in King Street, Sydney in early 1898, operating from a building described as a 'pleasing reminder of one of those delightful old Swiss chalets, which one always associates with Alpine travel.' The elaborate establishment boasted a first-floor reception room, 'beautifully decorated and luxuriously furnished', 'tastefully arranged dressing rooms, one for ladies and the other for gentlemen', and a 'lofty, cool and well-lit gallery' where 'the best artists in the photographic line' were at work.

1 portrait in the collection

Oz Rock

Previous exhibition, 2008

Two of the music industry’s highest-selling performers originated in suburban Australia. The Bee Gees started out in Brisbane, for instance, and AC/DC played their first gigs at a nightclub in inner Sydney.

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

NYSPP 2008

At the end of 2007 the National Portrait Gallery launched the inaugural National Youth Self Portrait Prize and artists aged between eighteen and twenty-five were invited to submit self portraits using a variety of media including drawing, painting, printmaking and traditional or digital photography.

Masters of modern Indonesian portraiture

Previous exhibition, 2014

Masters of modern Indonesian portraiture presents key modernist paintings and drawings along with a selection of contemporary works.

Johnny Warren OAM MBE

Johnny Warren OAM MBE (1943-2004), footballer, football administrator and commentator, grew up in southern Sydney where he played his first games of soccer, as his game was then known, for the Botany Methodists.

1 portrait in the collection

Look Whales

Jiawei Shen

Mary MacQueen

Mary MacQueen studied for a year at the George Bell School after the war, and for another year at RMIT a decade later.

2 portraits in the collection

Sasha and Gus, 2014

by Amanda James

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

NYSPP 2010

An annual event, the National Youth Self Portrait Prize seeks to encourage young people to embrace self portraiture and its expressive possibilities.

Alice Mills

Victorian-born Alice Mills was one of a significant number of women photographers in business between 1900 and 1920.

1 portrait in the collection

Before dark (Metamorphosis)

Rachel Gregg

John Mitchel with John Martin and Father John Kenyon [the three Johns]

John Mitchel with John Martin and Father John Kenyon [the three Johns], 1866

Edouard Gatel

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Runners, 2010

by David Kelly

The 70 year old jetty jumper, 2011

by Alex Frayne

Peter Brew-Bevan Portraits

In this exhibition Sydney based photographer Peter Brew-Bevan brings together an intimate collection of works that highlight his passion for the genre of portraiture over the last 10 years

The Photographic Society of Victoria, Melbourne

The Photographic Society of Victoria was formed in 1876 to 'bring photographers together in a friendly spirit, in order to advance the art and science of photography in the colony, without any attempt at binding or dictating to members any special trading rules, such as charges for photographs or hours or days for closing or opening their respective establishments.' At the time of the first annual meeting on 9 March 1877 there were 61 members, five whom were ladies.

1 portrait in the collection

Lleyton Hewitt AM

At twenty years old, Lleyton Hewitt AM (b. 1981) was the youngest male tennis player ever to be ranked world number one.

1 portrait in the collection

Robert T. Carter

Robert Thomas Carter (1843–1917) was a leading Sydney cabinetmaker and furniture warehouseman, and later an antique dealer.

2 portraits in the collection

Karl Fender, 2019

Anna Minardo

Portrait of Ezgi, 2016

by Alana Holmberg

Sleep, 2019

Natasha Bieniek

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2004

Hop, skip, shoot

Former NPG Deputy Director, Simon Elliott talks with Ern McQuillan about his life and career as a sports photographer.

Martha Knox

Portrait, conté crayon on paper

Martha Knox (née Rutledge, d. 1903), was the sister of merchant, landowner and banker William Rutledge.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, c. 1948

John Brack

Purchased with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2010

My Olivia, 2017

by Filomena Rizzo

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2004

Velasquez Touch

Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers, explores the creative collaborations between four Australian artists living in Paris during the first years of the twentieth century.

Jimmy Barnes at The Coogee Bay Hotel 1984 (detail) Grant Matthews

Pub Rock

Your backstage pass to 70s and 80s sounds and scenes

Previous exhibition, 2020

Celebrate the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on our nation’s identity.

Jenny Sages

Paths to Portraiture

The exhibition Sages examines the process of portrait making through four large-scale portraits of women by Jenny Sages, paired with intimate preparatory drawings.

Jesse, 2010

by Lia Steele

Rhoda Roberts, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

Famous

Karin Catt Portraits

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

Cameron and the prosthetic arm, 2016

by Steve Wise

Binowee, 2010

by Murray Vanderveer

A. Henry Fullwood

Albert Henry Fullwood (1863-1930), artist, trained in art in his native Birmingham before moving to Sydney in 1883, aged 20.

1 portrait in the collection

Headspace 6

Who Am I?

A Portrait of Colonial Australia

The sixth in the National Portrait Gallery’s series of student exhibitions, will feature 200 portrait artworks, both two and three-dimensional, from secondary school students from across Australia

Bungaree, late chief of the Broken Bay tribe, Sydney

Heads of the People

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

William Barak at work on the drawing ‘Ceremony’ at Coranderrk

Beruk

Beruk (William Barak) (1824-1903), an elder of the Wurundjeri clan of the Woi-worung, was the most famous Aboriginal person in Victoria in the 1890s.

1 portrait in the collection

Victor Greenhalgh

Portraits by Stuart Campbell

Victor Greenhalgh (1900-1983) was a sculptor and teacher who greatly influenced tertiary art education; he was one of the first Victorian sculptors to adopt a modern style.

5 portraits in the collection

Between Light and Shadow

Previous exhibition, 2011

The late Australian photographer Stuart Campbell produced superb photographs of Australian actors of stage and screen.

Marissa

Ben McNamara

Isaiah, arms and legs folded, 2015

by Marc Bowden

Brett Whiteley - portrait 1, 1975

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

Robert, 2010

by CJ Taylor

Anne

Nathan Dyer

Magazine article by Dimity Goldie, 2003

Portrait of a Modernist

The National Portrait Gallery acquired the self-portrait by Grace Cossington Smith in 2003.

Autumn evenings golden glow, c.1942 by Hilda Rix Nicholas

Paris to Monaro

Pleasures from the studio of Hilda Rix Nicholas

Previous exhibition, 2013

After successfully exploring the art scenes of London, France and Morocco, Hilda Rix Nicholas settled at Knockalong, a property near Delegate, on the Monaro plain in the 1920s.

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.

Icons

Parliament House

Touring exhibition, 2019

When a portrait communicates determination and individuality as boldly as these do, it has the potential to become an iconic image. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.

Tiffany, 2015

by Brett Canet-Gibson

Dr John Yu

An interview with the acclaimed pediatrician Dr. John Yu who describes the process of having his portrait sculpture created by artist Ah Xian.

Sage, 2015

by Jacinta Short

Kiffy Rubbo

Kiffy Rubbo (1944-1980) was director of the Ewing and George Paton Gallery at the University of Melbourne from 1973 to 1980.

1 portrait in the collection

Margaret Robertson

Margaret Robertson (née Whyte, 1811–1866) was the daughter of settlers George and Jessie Whyte, who emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land from Scotland in 1832.

4 portraits in the collection

Stevie Wright, 2003 (printed 2005)

Gregory McBean

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005

Brian McInerney

Brian McInerney, professional photographer, was a young assistant photographer at Channel Seven in Sydney in the 1960s.

2 portraits in the collection

Dayannah, 2018

by Raphaela Rosella

A weekend at Edie's, 2016

by Kristyn Jones

Francis (Pat) Quinn

Francis (Pat) Quinn (1914–2010), showman and hypnotist, was born in Christchurch, New Zealand.

2 portraits in the collection

Tommy Smith

Tommy Smith (1916-1998), racehorse trainer, was born at Jembaicumbene near Braidwood, NSW.

2 portraits in the collection

Sir William John Macleay

Sir William John Macleay (1820-1891), pastoralist, politician, collector and promoter of science, had just begun to study medicine in his native Scotland when family circumstances dictated his migration to New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

Who's that?

Faces of the Twentieth Century

Michael Desmond discusses the iconic picture of two Rugby League players which became known as 'The Gladiators'.

Karsh

Previous exhibition, 1998

Yousuf Karsh - the most famous portrait photographer in the world - has photographed the statesmen, artists, literary and scientific figures who have defined the 20th century and shaped our lives, In this, his 90th year, the National Portrait Gallery is thrilled to present an exhibition of Karsh's photography of 20th century figures.

William Daniell

William Daniell (1769-1837) worked mostly as a topographical draftsman and engraver in aquatint.

4 portraits in the collection

The Salway family

Dion Georgopoulos

Fatima, 2016

by Anu Kumar

Celebrating 100 years of the Historic Memorials Collection

Of Kings and men

Previous exhibition, 2011

This display celebrates 100 years of the Historic Memorials Collection and its role in commissioning portraits of parliamentary and judicial figures in Australia.

Falk Studios

by Kellie Maree Leczinska

Falk Studios was established by Melbourne-born photographer H. Walter Barnett in George Street, Sydney in 1885.

5 portraits in the collection

Kuei - The Sea of Gazelles - South Sudan to Oz, 2016

Amanda King

Amanda King is a Sydney-based visual artist and producer and director of film documentaries.

1 portrait in the collection

Fostin outside his mum's, Kings Park, Melbourne, 2015

by Nicola Dracoulis

Samuel Shelley

Samuel Shelley entered the Royal Academy Schools as a seventeen year-old in 1774 and exhibited at the Academy regularly from this time until 1804.

2 portraits in the collection

Dave

Jay Hynes

Breast cancer, age 37

Cat Leedon

Weight of the Mind's Periapt

Jane Allan

Portrait drawings from colonial Australia

Elegance in exile

Previous exhibition, 2012

Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.

Divine, 2014

by Hugh Peachey

Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake: Ella Havelka, Beijing

Lisa Tomasetti

Gurkirat, 2009

by Rod McNicol

Chris Gentle

Chris Gentle (b.1939) arrived in Australia from the United Kingdom in 1967 and is a painter, lecturer and writer.

1 portrait in the collection

Troye Sivan, 2018

by James Brickwood

Henry Meyer

Henry Hoppner Meyer, thought to be the son of an engraver, was a nephew of the painter John Hoppner.

2 portraits in the collection

Blek Bala MJ, 2017

by Timothy Hillier

Sacrifice, life and loss in the First World War

Finalist, DPA 2017
Single channel HD digital video

All that fall

Previous exhibition, 2015

Focussing on the wide-ranging theme of loss and absence, this exhibition provides a moving ‘portrait’ of loss during the First World War on the Australian home front. Powerful symbolic images, including contemporary works, evoke the emotional intensity of loss. All that fall: Sacrifice, life and loss in the First World War is the National Portrait Gallery’s contribution to the Anzac Centenary.

Kiffy Rubbo 2, 1979, 1979 (printed 2012)

Robert Rooney

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Janine Burke, c. 1980, 1980 (printed 2012)

Robert Rooney

Portrait, ambrotype, hand coloured on glass plate with black paint backing

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Mr and Mrs R. T. Carter, c. 1863

Milligan Bros (Studio)

Gift of Mr and Mrs James Bain 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Arthur Boyd’s Mysterious Eyes

6 May 2016

The National Portrait Gallery has unveiled a focus exhibition of captivating portraits by renowned artist Arthur Boyd, titled Mysterious eyes: Arthur Boyd portraits from 1945.

The girls, 2017

by Tamara Dean

Alan Sumner MBE

Alan Sumner MBE (1911-1994) was a painter, printmaker, teacher and stained glass designer.

1 portrait in the collection

Thea Proctor, c. 1896

Gift of Thea Bryant (Proctor) 2005

Portrait 55

Summer 2016-2017

Magazine article by Anthony Browell, 2004

Explore convict art, photography by Ruth Hollick and Collier Schorr, an interview with neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, portraiture on money, and more!

Charmed by the Rose

Anthony Browell reminisces about meeting Rose Lindsay, the wife of Australian artist Norman Lindsay.

Lady Eliza Lucy Grey

Portrait, pastel on paper

Eliza Lucy Spencer (c. 1819-1898) was the daughter of the Government Resident at Albany, who was succeeded by George Grey.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, 1981

Michael Shannon

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Les Rowe 1998
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Clara Crosbie, c. 1885

Arthur William Burman

Gift of John McPhee 2018

The Skin I'm In II, 2016

by Brian Cassey

Mela

Bahram Mia

Adam Perkins

Adam Perkins, an Arrernte and Kalkadoon man, is the son of Indigenous rights campaigner and bureaucrat Charles Perkins AO.

1 portrait in the collection

Reshid Bey

Reshid Bey was a Victorian painter and teacher. Born in Berlin when his father was Turkish ambassador there, he came to Australia, his mother’s homeland, when he was a young man.

3 portraits in the collection

Alex Frayne

An interview with the photographer.

Shane Dye

Magazine article by Rineke Dijkstra, 2013

Shane Dye (b. 1966), jockey, was born in Matamata, New Zealand, and served his apprenticeship in New Zealand before coming to Australia in 1985.

2 portraits in the collection

Almerisa, Asylumseekerscenter Leiden, March 14, 1993

Interview

Rineke Dijkstra's photographic series of her subject, Almerisa Sehric, evolved over the course of 14 years.

Bust of Frank McIlwraith, 1937

Barbara Tribe

Portrait, cast bronze, patinated

Gift of the Estate of the late Barbara Tribe 2009

Collection: Icons

Volume One

Tan Le

Tan Le (b. 1977) is an innovator in the field of neurotechnology. Le arrived in Australia at age four with her mother, sister, grandmother, aunt and uncle, all refugees who had undertaken the perilous boat journey from Vietnam.

1 portrait in the collection

Margaret Robertson, c. 1852

Portrait, ambrotype, hand coloured

Gift of Fiona Turner (née Robertson) and John Robertson 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Donald Friend

Donald Friend (1915-1989), painter, writer and diarist, studied at the RAS and Dattilo-Rubbo’s school in Sydney before spending 1935 and 1936 at the Westminster School in London.

2 portraits in the collection

Headspace 7

Me and My Place

Headspace 7: Me and My Place, the seventh in the National Portrait Gallery's series of student exhibitions, will be presented at Commonwealth Place. Me and My Place is the curatorial theme for the 2006 exhibition.

Tony Mitchell

Tony Mitchell was in a band called Wheelbarrow, who released a single, 'Dame Zara' before Mitchell left to join Harry Young and Sabbath.

3 portraits in the collection

Richard von Marientreu

Portrait, albumen photograph on carte de visite

Richard von Marientreu was born in Poland and attended military academies in Cracow and Vienna before leaving for Prague, where he studied at the Academy of Painting.

2 portraits in the collection

The first Australian first-class cricket team to tour England and North America

The first Australian first-class cricket team to tour England and North America, 1878

A & G Taylor

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

A & G Taylor

Photographers Andrew Taylor and George Taylor opened their first studio in Cannon Street in east London in 1866.

1 portrait in the collection

Adrian Lawlor

Adrian Lawlor, critic and artist, came to Australia from his native England at the age of about twenty.

2 portraits in the collection

Prime Ministers

On the day before the Hon. E. G. Whitlam, AC, QC, died last month, at the great age of 98, there were seven former prime ministers of Australia still living, plus the incumbent Mr. Abbott – eight in all.

James Cassius Williamson

James Cassius Williamson (1845-1913), actor and theatrical entrepreneur, worked and performed in theatres in his native USA before coming to Victoria under contract to George Selth Coppin in 1874.

1 portrait in the collection

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, 1899 by Carl Pietzner

The Archduke

The immediate chain of events that led to the outbreak of the First World War began 100 years ago on June 28.

Casey Stoner AM

Casey Stoner (b. 1985), the 2008 Young Australian of the Year, won the MotoGP World Championship motorcycle competition held at Phillip Island in 2007.

1 portrait in the collection

David Campese AM

David Ian Campese (b. 1962) is the world's leading representative rugby union footballer, having played 101 tests for Australia between 1982 and 1996.

1 portrait in the collection

Lionel Rose, World Champion Bantam Weight Boxer before departing to the USA to defend his title

The champs

Two lively portrait photographs reflect the agility of their subjects: world champion Australian sportsmen Lionel Rose and Anthony Mundine.

Thomas Woolner

Thomas Woolner, sculptor, studied first with the brothers Henry and William Behnes, painter and sculptor respectively, and later at the Royal Academy, at which he was to become professor of sculpture in his fifties.

5 portraits in the collection

You Look Like a...Matthew, 2016

by Cherine Fahd

Elizabeth Chong

For many years Elizabeth Chong has shared her love of Chinese cuisine with Australian audiences.

1 portrait in the collection

Betina Fauvel-Ogden

Betina Fauvel-Ogden was born in Adelaide and lives and works in Melbourne.

2 portraits in the collection

Janette Howard

Janette Howard (b. 1943), wife of former prime minister the Hon. John Howard OM AC, was born in Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

To Look Away – Tilda, 2015

by Sophie Hyde

Finalist, DPA 2016

Elia, 2006

by Alan Lesheim

Jaq Grantford

A self-portrait from a different time, feels like a different time, even though it's only a couple of years ago or one and a half years, if that, and it was my commentary on COVID and how I was feeling about it at the time.

Arthur Summons

The Photographic Society of Victoria, Melbourne

Arthur Summons (1935-2020), footballer, played fly-half in ten rugby union test matches for the Wallabies between 1956 and 1960 before joining rugby league's Western Suburbs Magpies in 1960.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Pearce, c. 1878

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite on card

Purchased 2010

Dancer

Touring exhibition, 2024

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

Marilyn Ball, Albatross, 2018 (detail) by Linde Ivimey

So Fine

Contemporary women artists make Australian history

Ashtead Potters Limited, Surrey, UK, Percy Metcalfe

This exhibition features new works from ten women artists reinterpreting and reimagining elements of Australian history, enriching the contemporary narrative around Australia’s history and biography, reflecting the tradition of storytelling in our country.

Now and then

Polly Cutmore

Magazine article, 2023

Photographed 35 years apart, these two portraits offer both a timeline of, and thematic thread for, Maria (Polly) Cutmore’s life – from a young woman to a respected Gomeroi Elder.

Portrait jug of Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1925-1928

Portrait, glazed ceramic

Purchased 2006

Sophie and Mercy, 2016

by Zelko Nedic

Karin Catt

Karin Catt grew up in Newcastle, where she began taking photographs of touring bands while a schoolgirl, and also in London and Hong Kong.

9 portraits in the collection

Cat Leedon

This was taken as part of a series, documenting my, I call it my shit show roller coaster.

fresh from the Channel Fleet (Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson)

Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson GCB GCMG

Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson GCB GCMG (1843–1910) was appointed governor of New South Wales in January 1902 having distinguished himself in the course of various conflicts as an officer of the Royal Navy.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait

John Constable

Melissa Beowulf

Melissa Beowulf grew up in Sydney, where she became a graphic artist.

2 portraits in the collection

David Combe

David Combe (b.1943) became interested in politics at Adelaide University and was motivated to join the ALP in 1962, partly through his friendship with Don Dunstan.

1 portrait in the collection

Nick Enright AM

Nick Enright (1950-2003), playwright and screenwriter, attended Sydney University and the New York University School of the Arts before establishing himself as a dramatist with plays such as Summer Rain and Mongrels.

2 portraits in the collection

John Schaeffer AO

The Yarra Boot Trunk Tragedy, 12 January 1899

John Schaeffer AO (1940–2020), businessman, connoisseur and philanthropist, was a founding benefactor of the National Portrait Gallery.

1 portrait in the collection

Olga Radalyski prison records, on loan from the Public Record Office of Victoria.

The sensational denouement of the case

Portrait, conté crayon and charcoal on paper

The 'Yarra Boot Trunk Tragedy' unfolded a week before Christmas 1898, when some neighbourhood boys noticed a wooden box floating in the river at Richmond.

Ina Gregory, c. 1895

E. Phillips Fox

Purchased 2012

Donald Friend, 1987

Magazine article by Helena Bezzina, 2008

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

Emerging realities

Margaret Anderson GM

Margaret Anderson GM (1915–1995) served with the Australian Army Nursing Service during the Second World War in Singapore.

1 portrait in the collection

Fans at an Easybeats concert, Sydney Stadium, 1965 Bob King

Oz Origins

A little bit louder now

Portrait, ink and charcoal on paper

Australia’s passion for rock ‘n roll was kindled by American and British acts in the 1950s and 60s. The novel genre’s driving, licentious rhythms and voices captured imaginations and libidos, not to mention aspiring young musicians.

Donald Friend at Owl Creek, 1983

Lawrence Daws

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lawrence Daws 2012
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Drawing power

Magazine article by Eileen Adams, 2006

The National Portrait Gallery joins the Big Draw, a program dedicated to promoting drawing as a tool for thought, creativity, social and cultural engagement.

Lowe Kong Meng

Lowe Kong Meng (1831–1888), merchant, was born and grew up in the British colony of Penang and came to Melbourne in 1853.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait (Full Length in front of Easel)

Hugh Ramsay

Hugh Ramsay (1877-1906), painter, was born in Scotland but arrived in Australia as a baby.

3 portraits in the collection

Wayne Quilliam

Previous exhibition, 2002

The important part about it is is where it was captured. That's the Laura Quinkan Dance Festival, where our remote communities gather every two years to celebrate culture, to share knowledge, and to share stories.

Contemporary Australian Portraits

Contemporary Australian Portraits is a cross section, a sampling, of some of the present-day directions in Australian portrait practice

Self portrait in plus fours, c. 1939 (cast 2003)

Lyndon Dadswell CMG

Portrait, cast bronze

Purchased 2004

Matt Ottley, 2019

Jana Vodesil-Baruffi

Ina Gregory

Georgina ‘Ina’ Gregory (1874-1964) grew up with her sister Ada at Rosedale, her family home in East St Kilda.

1 portrait in the collection

David Jones

David Jones (1793-1873), merchant, began his retail career in Pembrokeshire and London before emigrating to Sydney via Hobart.

1 portrait in the collection

Crown Studios

The Crown Studio was a Sydney-based firm situated on the corner of Market and George streets.

3 portraits in the collection

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl Liverpool, Lord Hawkesbury (1770–1828), statesman, was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827.

2 portraits in the collection

Johnny, 2006

by Sean Hobbs

Lyndon Dadswell, with his sculpture 'Native'

Lyndon Dadswell CMG

Lyndon Dadswell CMG (1908-1986) studied at the Julian Ashton School before working with Rayner Hoff from 1926 to 1929 and Paul Montford from 1929 to 1935.

3 portraits in the collection

Collection: Icons

Volume Two

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.

John Kaldor AO

John Kaldor, textile designer and manufacturer, was born in Hungary. He came to Australia with his family in 1948.

1 portrait in the collection

Henry Samuel Sadd

Henry Sadd was born in London and exhibited engravings there before emigrating to the USA some time around 1840.

8 portraits in the collection

The New Arrivals at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art

Peter Purves Smith

Archived media releases 2017

Peter Purves Smith (1912–1949), artist, went to Geelong Grammar with his lifelong friend Russell Drysdale.

2 portraits in the collection

Richard Morecroft & Alison Mackay, 2016 by Gary Grealy

Gary Grealy wins National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017

31 March 2017

After months of anticipation, the winner for the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 has been announced with renowned Sydney portrait photographer Gary Grealy taking out the award. George Fetting, guest judge for the 2017 Prize, was entranced with the evocative nature of the winning portrait Richard Morecroft and Alison Mackay.

Lloyd Rees, 1973

Robert Walker

Purchased 1999

Portrait of Paddy Japaljarrii Stewart, 2004

Francis Reiss

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004

Neville Gruzman AM

Neville Gruzman AM (1925–2005), architect and lecturer, was born in Sydney, the son of immigrants of Russian heritage.

1 portrait in the collection

Ken Done, 1987

Purchased 2006

David Malangi Daymirringu

David Malangi Daymirringu (1927-1999), Manharrngu, bark painter, printer and designer, was born at Mulanga, near the mouth of the Glyde River, just before Christian missionaries arrived on the nearby island of Milingimbi.

1 portrait in the collection

A very great and stimulating thrill

Just good friends?

Horatio S. Wills

Magazine article by Peter Jeffrey, 2016

Horatio Spencer Howe Wills (1811–1861), pastoralist, politician and newspaper proprietor, was born in Sydney, several months after the death of his father, Edward Spencer Wills, a merchant and shipowner who'd arrived in New South Wales under a life sentence for highway robbery in 1799.

2 portraits in the collection

Hottie's Snifter to port

Peter Jeffrey trips the hound nostalgic.

Stable Scene with Shane Dye, 2000

Noel McKenna

Gift of the artist 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Longest reign

Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest-reigning British sovereign

Samuel Woolf

Previous exhibition, 2016

Samuel Johnson Woolf, American painter, lithographer and illustrator, was born in New York City and named after the English essayist Samuel Johnson.

1 portrait in the collection

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.

Charles Joseph La Trobe

Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801-1875), colonial administrator, travelled widely in Europe and America before beginning his colonial career in the West Indies in 1837.

3 portraits in the collection

John Landy, c. 1954

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004

Professor Leslie Wilkinson, 1970

Anthony Browell

Francois Verheyden, Vanity Fair Magazine

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Fetteresso (Sir Robert Duff), 1883

Purchased 2015

Elizabeth Chong, 2000

Jaime Murcia

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

Miss Florrie Ford (Christmas pantomime with toy cat)

Florrie Forde

Florrie Forde (1875–1940), singer and music hall performer, was born in Melbourne and was sixteen when she sang publicly for the first time, in Sydney, in late 1891.

9 portraits in the collection

Slow Motion @ 300kms per hour Mark ‘Sparky’ Webber, Formula 1 Driver, 2016

by Gino Zardo

Captain Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders (1774–1814), was one of the world’s most accomplished navigators.

2 portraits in the collection

POL

Portrait of a Generation

POL was a magazine that ran from 1969 to 1986

Collier Schorr

Tough & Tender

This is the first time Collier Schorr's photographs, which explore gender and identity, have been shown in Australia.

Benny (42nd Street Series), 1979–80 by Larry Clark

City boys

Portrait photography by John Elliott

Christopher Chapman immerses himself in Larry Clark’s field of vision.

Thousand Mile Stare

Thousand mile stare provides a unique portrait of people of rural Australia

Lindy Morrison

Lindy Morrison joined The Go-Betweens as drummer in 1980. After the band split up in early 1990, she teamed up with another ex Go-Between, Amanda Brown, in a group called Cleopatra Wong.

1 portrait in the collection

Dr Jill Orr

Dr Jill Orr (born 1952) is a Melbourne-born contemporary artist, whose performance-based practice has continued to interrogate the environmental concerns since the 1970s.

1 portrait in the collection

National Photographic Portrait Prize 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.

James Gleeson

Ludwig Lang after Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

James Gleeson AO was Australia's best-known surrealist artist, and from the late 1930s onwards he was a tireless supporter of Australian modern art.

3 portraits in the collection

Lowe Kong Meng, c. 1887

Portrait, tinted lithograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Billy Hughes paperweight, n.d.

Portrait, cast iron, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ric Techow and Jenny Techow-Coleman in memory of Roy and Bet Techow 2001

The Athlete

An exhibition of sporting photographs by Anderson & Low

The Athlete explores the sporting life well beyond the superficial image of the human physique

Jim Rolon

New Jersey-born Jim Rolon (b. 1956) began working as a photographer for a family portrait company in his twenties.

6 portraits in the collection

The Australian Tom Thumb (John David Armstrong)

The Australian Tom Thumb (John David Armstrong), c. 1880

J D. Cooper

Purchased 2014

Slow Motion @ 300kms per hour Mark 'Sparky'™ Webber, Formula 1 Driver

Slow Motion @ 300kms per hour Mark 'Sparky'™ Webber, Formula 1 Driver, 2016

Gino Zardo

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019

Adam Knott

Adam Knott (b. 1966) began taking photographs for local newspapers as a schoolboy in St George, South Sydney.

7 portraits in the collection

David Foster OAM

David Foster OAM (b. 1957), champion axeman, is the most successful competitor in the history of the sport of woodchopping.

1 portrait in the collection

Norman Lindsay

Now on display in Gallery Two

Norman Lindsay (1879-1969), artist, cartoonist, and writer, came from a family that produced five artists.

14 portraits in the collection

The Cosmopolitans

Previous exhibition, 2017

Nicholas Harding

28 Portraits

Nicholas Harding: 28 portraits features paintings of Robert Drewe, John Bell and Hugo Weaving alongside gorgeously coloured recent oil portraits, delicate gouaches and bold ink and charcoal drawings.

Disillusion self portrait, 1983

Mary MacQueen

Portrait, pastel and charcoal on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Robin MacQueen 2007

Roy de Maistre CBE

Roy de Maistre (Roi (Leroy) de Mestre) CBE (1894-1968), painter, studied music at the Sydney Conservatorium, but was also a student at the RAS School with Dattilo Rubbo and later the Sydney Art School with Julian Ashton.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, 1911

Evelyn Chapman

Gift of Pamela Thalben-Ball 2007

Julia Margaret Cameron

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2004

Julia Margaret Cameron was of the most important photographers of the nineteenth century.

1 portrait in the collection

101 photographic portraits

Pat Corrigan's generous gift of 100 photographic portraits by Greg Weight.

Governor Sir Robert Duff with Lady Duff, Lord Hopetoun and Vice-Regal Party

Sir Robert William Duff

Sir Robert William Duff (1835–1895) was governor of New South Wales from May 1893 until March 1895.

2 portraits in the collection

Buckley discovering himself to the early settlers

William Buckley

William Buckley (1780-1856), known as 'the wild white man', was transported for life in 1802 for receiving stolen cloth.

1 portrait in the collection

Round the World (Thomas Brassey), 1877

Purchased 2015

Garry Shead

Born in Sydney, Garry Shead studied at the National Art School in 1961-2.

3 portraits in the collection

Kylie Kwong AM

Portrait, cast plaster, patinated on wooden base

Kylie Kwong was born into a fourth generation Australian Chinese family in Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Alfred Hill, 1936

Rayner Hoff

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2000

Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois, Governor of South Australia

Sir William F. Jervois

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois (1821-1897), governor, attended the Royal Military Academy before being commissioned to the Royal Engineers in 1839.

1 portrait in the collection

William Francis King, 'The Flying Pieman'

William Francis King, 'The Flying Pieman', c. 1869

John Davis

Gift of the family of FW Macpherson 2010

Jane Franklin, c. 1866-1875

an unknown artist after Thomas Bock

Portrait, carved marble relief

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Werner Baer MBE

Werner Baer MBE (1914-1992) grew up in Berlin, where he studied piano with Artur Schnabel and worked at the Berlin Stadtsoper.

1 portrait in the collection

Double Self Portrait in Mirror, c. 1936

Alison Rehfisch

Portrait, oil on hessian

Purchased 2023

Frederick Burnaby

James Jacques Tissot

S Calvert, Gibbs, Shallard and Co after O.R. Campbell

Buckley discovering himself to the early settlers, 1869

Portrait, colour wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2009

Thomas Phillips

Thomas Phillips was born in Dudley, Warwickshire and initially trained as a glass painter before moving to London, aged 20, with a letter of introduction to the painter Benjamin West.

6 portraits in the collection

Gustavus Brooke

Gustavus Vaughan Brooke (1818-1866), actor, was a seasoned theatre performer by his early teens; at fourteen, he played Richard III.

1 portrait in the collection

Very fine and very like

When did notions of very fine and very like become separate qualities of a portrait? And what happens to 'very like' in the age of photographic portraiture?

Sir Asher Joel

Sir Asher Joel (1912-1998), public relations entrepreneur and state politician, started out as a copyboy at Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

1 portrait in the collection

Percy Spence

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

1 portrait in the collection

John Hamilton

As a young reporter for the Melbourne Age, John Hamilton (b.1940 UK, migrated to Aust.

1 portrait in the collection

Golden boy

Dr Christopher Chapman examines Scott Redford's photographic portrait of Australian surfer David 'Rasta' Rastovich.

John Schaeffer AO - art collector and philanthropist, 2014

Evert Ploeg

Purchased with funds provided by Harold Mitchell AC

Boxer, Blake Travers, 2017

by Patrick Bell

Finalist, DPA 2017
Single channel HD digital video

Nick Enright, c. 1976 (printed 2004)

Robert McFarlane

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

Jacques Etienne Victor Arago

Jacques Etienne Victor Arago (1790-1855), author, artist and explorer, travelled with Louis-Claude de Saulces de Freycinet on his 1817 voyage around the world on the Uranie.

3 portraits in the collection

Reg Lindsay, Scone, NSW, 2004

John Elliott

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005

Younger Australians more engaged with arts and history

11 April 2016

Archived media releases 2014

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.

Arcadia media information

31 July 2014

Press releases and image downloads for media.

To Look Within

Self Portraits in Australia

This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of self-portraits in Australia, from the colonial period to the present

John Newcombe and family, 1973

Portrait Sculpture in Australia

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

Decorative portrait – Len Lye, c.1925 by Rayner Hoff (1894-1937)

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

Billy Cook and Pride of Egypt, 1954

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004

Georgie Swift

Georgie Swift (1920-2008), journalist, publicist and chatelaine, was born Georgette Marie Hiro Matsui to a French-born mother and Japanese father in Sydney after the First World War.

1 portrait in the collection

Talma Studios, Sydney

Charles Turner after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Talma Studios opened in Sydney in March 1899 in a George Street premises next door to the GPO.

1 portrait in the collection

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, 1827

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

John Firth Smith

John Firth-Smith (b. 1943) is a Sydney abstract painter. In the early 1960s he won a number of 'young artist' prizes for his paintings of yachts on Sydney Harbour, but by 1968 his work was becoming increasingly abstract, featuring large fields of opaque colour.

2 portraits in the collection

Dressing for dinner, 1992

Davida Allen

Portrait, oil on plywood

Gift of the artist 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Warumpi Band

The Warumpi Band burst onto the Australian music scene in 1984 with the release of their first album Big Name, No Blankets.

2 portraits in the collection

Lindy (No. 2 of Robert, Lindy, Grant)

Jenny Watson

Rt Hon. Sir Robert Menzies, c. 1962

Victor Greenhalgh

Portrait, cast bronze

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lady Bunting in honour of Sir John Bunting and the Menzies Foundation 1999
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Peter Brock AM

Peter Brock (1945-2006), a professional racing driver from 1972 to 1997, was undoubtedly Australia's best known and most popular motor sports personality.

1 portrait in the collection

Herb Elliott AC MBE

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

James Herbert 'Herb' Elliott AC MBE (b. 1938), runner, won the gold medal in the 1500 metres at the Rome Olympics in 1960.

1 portrait in the collection

The Tichborne Claimant (Arthur Orton), c. 1872

Maull & Co Photographers

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Sharon Atkinson-Firebrace, c. 2000

N Schiavonetti after Thomas Phillips

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004

Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society

Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, 1812

Portrait, line engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Hari Ho

Hari Ho left his native Malaysia as a young man to travel and work throughout the US, Europe and Asia.

2 portraits in the collection

Eric Thake

Eric Thake (1904-1982), printmaker, painter and photographer, trained at the National Gallery School and the George Bell School and showed with the Contemporary Group in Melbourne between 1932 and 1938 before serving as an official war artist in the RAAF.

7 portraits in the collection

Centenary of ANZAC

Just now we pause to mark the centenary of ANZAC, the day when, together with British, other imperial and allied forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli at the start of the ill-starred Dardanelles campaign.

Dorothy Gordon OBE

Dorothy Gordon (Jenner) OBE, ‘Andrea’ (1891-1985), actress, dressmaker, stuntwoman, journalist, radio broadcaster and charity fundraiser, grew up on a property near Narrabri and attended boarding school in Sydney before gaining a part as a chorus girl in Girl in a Train in Melbourne in 1912.

2 portraits in the collection

Vali Myers, 2001

Eva Collins

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2003

Kylie Kwong, 2003

Simon Griffiths

Purchased 2005

Barbara Robison, 1935

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

Ray Crooke AM

Ray Crooke AM grew up in Melbourne, where after army service in WA, North Queensland and Borneo, he trained at Swinburne Tech from 1946 to 1948.

3 portraits in the collection

Sir Joseph Banks, 1802

William Ridley

Previous exhibition, 2022

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gina and Ted Gregg 2010

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.

Collection in focus: Brook Andrew

Previous exhibition, 2017

Experience the artistic clout of Brook Andrew’s portraits of Marcia Langton AM and Anthony Mundine.

Harry Williams

Photographic Portraits from 19th Century Australia

Harry Williams (b. 1951) is a Wiradjuri man and the first Indigenous footballer to represent Australia at international level.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa

Husbands and Wives

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

Ted Dyson, Bill Dyson (with pipe) and Percy

Ted Dyson, Bill Dyson (with pipe) and Percy, c. 1899

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Anthony Mundine, 1992 (printed 2008)

Mervyn Bishop

Purchased 2008

Phillip Gudthaykudthay

Philip Gudthaykudthay (b. 1935) Liyagalawumirr (Yolgnu) bark painter, worked as a young man as a stockman, fencer and crocodile hunter around Milingimbi and Ramingining.

1 portrait in the collection

Francis Nixon

Francis Russell Nixon (1803-1879) photographer, artist and Anglican clergyman, arrived in Hobart in 1843 to take up the role of Bishop of Tasmania.

2 portraits in the collection

Charles Warman Roberts

Charles Warman Roberts (1821–1894), publican, was born in Sydney, the eldest son of free settler parents who emigrated to Australia in 1821.

1 portrait in the collection

Samantha Nimunburr Wyborn, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

Self portrait (Full Length in front of Easel), 1901-1902

Hugh Ramsay

Portrait, charcoal heightened with white chalk on paper

Gift of the Estate of John Oswald Wicking 2003

Sir Sidney Kidman, 1932

Samuel Woolf

Purchased 2009

Sporting Archibald

Celebrating the focus on sport during 2000, this special exhibition features our national sporting heroes and heroines immortalised on canvas

Dr Brown and Green Old Time Waltz, 1983 by Harold Thornton

Learning programs

Opportunities for support

Unique experiences and programs for enquiring young minds, teachers and lifelong learners.

‘Never break this heart of stone’

Lust

Desired by millions

Australians in Hollywood

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

Lloyd Rees, c. 1988

Magazine article by Geoffrey Batchen, 2007

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

Here and there

Nathalie Latham's exhibition Australia's Creative Diaspora explores Australians, in the arts, who live and work internationally.

Governor Sir Robert Duff with Lady Duff, Lord Hopetoun and Vice-Regal Party, 1893

Kerry & Co

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Alfred William Cox

Alfred William Cox (1857–1919), racehorse owner and breeder, was born in Liverpool, England, the son of a successful cotton broker.

1 portrait in the collection

Gene Sherman with Family, After Tillers, After Freud, After Watteau

Ondine Sherman

Ondine Sherman (b. 1974), author and animal rights activist, grew up in Sydney and attained her undergraduate degree in communications from University of Technology Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir William John Lyne

Sir William John Lyne (1844-1913), politician, was a Premier of New South Wales and a minister in the first Australian parliament.

1 portrait in the collection

The artist and the doctor

Lust

Art, war, scandal

Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis (1950-2020) was born in Maryland, USA, and came to Australia in 1951.

3 portraits in the collection

Evert Ploeg

Evert Ploeg began his career as a commercial illustrator in the mid-1980s.

7 portraits in the collection

Max Dupain

The Vintage Years

During his long and distinguished career Max Dupain took thousands of photographs of people

Gordon Watson AM

Previous exhibition, 2007

Gordon Watson AM (1921-1999), pianist and teacher, taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1964 to 1986 and was head of its keyboard department when he retired.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait Paintings by Matthew Perceval

From 1967 until 1981 Matthew Perceval lived and painted in France and during those years produced a large body of portrait paintings.

Missing Persons

Thomas Woolner in Australia

Desperately seeking Woolner medallions

Tamara Tchinarova

Magazine article by Pieter Roelofs, 2023

Tamara Tchinarova (1919–2017), dancer, was one of the original 'baby ballerinas' of the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo.

2 portraits in the collection

Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, 1657–58 Johannes Vermeer

Basking in light

Pieter Roelofs, Head of Painting and Sculpture at Rijksmuseum and co-curator of Vermeer, delves into the largest-ever exhibition of the master artist.

Harry Belafonte

Dorothy Wilding

Les Darcy, Australian Middleweight Boxer

Les Darcy, Australian Middleweight Boxer, c. 1910

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

doppelgänger

doppelgänger is the second in a series of virtual exhibitions held by the National Portrait Gallery that explore contemporary notions of portraiture in the online environment.

Sir Cecil Colville, c. 1965

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Richard Due 2010

Reputedly Elizabeth Macarthur, 1785-1790 Unknown

The most material advantages

A one-in-a-thousand woman

John Bell, c. 1968

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

David Malangi Daymirringu, 1986

Purchased 2005

Cecil Beaton

Portraits

Accomplished illustrator, painter, writer and diarist, set designer and one of the most distinguished photographers of the twentieth century, Cecil Beaton is renowned for his portraits of well known faces from the worlds of fashion, literature, and film.

Clif Peir

Clif Peir (b.1905) was a Sydney painter and teacher, who studied at the Julian Ashton School under Ashton and H.C.Gibbons.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark

Tribute: Mary Isabel Murphy

The Chairman, Board, Director and all the staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Benefactor, Mary Isabel Murphy.

Headspace 4

Facing Memory

Facing Memory: Headspace 4 provides us with valuable insights into the thoughts, creative processes and art-making practices of secondary students from Year 7 to Year 12 from sixty-two schools in the Australian Capital Territory, regional New South Wales and Victoria

Brett Whiteley

Brett Whiteley AO, artist, displayed a brilliant talent for drawing as a Sydney private schoolboy.

11 portraits in the collection

Ken Done

Portrait, pencil and oil on canvas laid on chipboard

Ken Done (b. 1940), painter, studied at East Sydney Tech before becoming an advertising graphic designer.

3 portraits in the collection

Zelman Cowen, c. 1977

Ray Crooke AM

Gift of David Crooke 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Charles Wheeler

Charles Wheeler OBE (1881–1977), artist, won the Archibald Prize in 1933 for a portrait of the popular Melbourne-based writer Ambrose Pratt.

8 portraits in the collection

Heide Smith

Heide Smith took up photography as a young girl in Germany in 1948, when her uncle gave her a Zeiss Ikon camera.

3 portraits in the collection

Rose Byrne

Rose Byrne (b. 1979), actor, was raised in the Sydney suburbs of Balmain and Newtown, and joined the Australian Theatre for Young People at the age of eight.

1 portrait in the collection

The rock and the flies, 1952

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

Sunshine and rain, Lygon Street, 1964

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

Epstein/Einstein? I can never remember!, 1962

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

Mr Thake - Dr So and So, 1959

Gift of Professor Van Sommers 2011

Jim Paterson

Jim Paterson, painter, printmaker and sculptor, was born in Melbourne and completed his diploma in Fine Arts at Prahran Technical College in 1969.

1 portrait in the collection

Lloyd Rees at 90, Northwood, Sydney, 1985 (printed 2000)

David Moore

David Rastovich

Portrait, oil on canvas board

David 'Rasta' Rastovich (b. 1979), professional surfer and conservation activist, was born in rural New Zealand.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of an Artist (Self portrait), 1944

David Strachan

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Mel Gibson AO

Magazine article by Mette Skougaard, 2006

Mel Gibson (b. 1956), actor, was born in New York state, the sixth of eleven children of a railroad brakeman and an Australian opera singer.

1 portrait in the collection

Australian visit in Denmark

In April 2006 the National Portrait Gallery showcased Australian portraits at the Fredenksborg Castle in Denmark.

Figure in a rocky landscape, 1965

Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011

Self portrait among the ant hills, 1950

Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011

Desert Island, 1967

Gift of Professor Peter Van Sommers 2011

William St Leonards Robertson and the Oxford boat race crew

William St Leonards Robertson and the Oxford boat race crew, early 1880s

Hills & Saunders

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Greg Weight

Magazine article by Robert McFarlane, 2004

Greg Weight is a Sydney-based photographer who grew up in Dee Why. He opened his own studio in 1968, taking advertising and magazine photographs and working with the Australian Opera and the Australian Ballet.

113 portraits in the collection

Insightful

Henri-Cartier-Bresson invented the grammar for photographing life in the 20th century.

Lloyd Rees, 1987

Michel Lawrence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Werner Baer, 1947

Gift of Richard King 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The Merioola Group, 1940s

Alec Murray

Portrait, pastel on paper

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Margaret Anderson, 1942

Napier Waller CMG OBE

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Phillip Noyce AO

Portrait, charcoal on paper

Phillip Noyce AO (b. 1950), director, was part of the first student intake at the Australian Film and Television School in 1973.

2 portraits in the collection

Bee Miles, 1976

Roderick Shaw

Gift of Brian Griffin 2000

Entry guidelines 2024

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize

Read the full requirements for entering the prize.

Portraits for Posterity

Drawn from some of the many donations made to the Gallery's collection, the exhibition Portraits for Posterity pays homage both to the remarkable (and varied) group of Australians who are portrayed in the portraits and the generosity of the many donors who have presented them to the Gallery.

Lt. A.R.Cutler VC, 1943

Dora Toovey

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Cutler family 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Anthony Mundine

Magazine article by Tenille Hands, 2018

Anthony Mundine (b. 1975), Bundjalung boxer and former rugby league player, was born in Newtown in Sydney's inner south and began his career playing league for Hurstville United.

2 portraits in the collection

The life of Bryant

Tenille Hands explores a portrait prize gifted to the National Screen and Sound Archive.

David Alexander Stewart Campbell

Portrait, etching, printed in black ink from one copper plate on paper

David Alexander Stewart Campbell (1898-1970), wool buyer and journal editor, undertook a woolclassing course in Sydney, worked as a jackeroo, served in the AIF in Egypt and gained further experience with wool in England before he was inducted into the wool trade in Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

Truggernana [Trukanini], a native of southern part of V.D. Land

Truggernana [Trukanini], a native of southern part of V.D. Land, 1835

Benjamin Duterrau

Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2009

Woureddy [Wurati], a wild native of Brune Island

Woureddy [Wurati], a wild native of Brune Island, 1835

Benjamin Duterrau

Portrait, etching, printed in black ink from one copper plate on paper

Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2009

Anne Hyde, Duchess of York and King James II

Sir Peter Lely

Tjayanka Woods

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, sepia toned on paper

Tjayanka Woods (d. 2014) was a senior Pitjantjatjara artist and cultural custodian.

2 portraits in the collection

Kyle Vander-Kuyp, 1998

Anderson & Low

Purchased 2001

Sir Bernard Heinze AC KT

Sir Bernard Heinze AC KT (1894-1982) was a conductor who brought classical music to the general public and promoted the works of Australian composers.

1 portrait in the collection

Henry Wade, c. 1841

Portrait, oil on paperboard

Gift of the Wade and Hannah families 2013

Arcadia (Wayne Lynch and Bob McTavish), 1969 (reprinted 2011)

John Witzig

Gift of the artist 2011

Glenn Murcutt

Recorded 2017

Ralph Barton

Ralph Barton, American cartoonist and caricaturist, produced a body of work that epitomises American high life in the 1920s.

1 portrait in the collection

Tony Mitchell, 1975 (printed 2001)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Alan Sandow, 1975 (printed 2001)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Clive Shakespeare, 1975 (printed 2001)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Daryl Braithwaite, 1975 (printed 2001)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Garth Porter, 1975 (printed 2001)

Portrait, oil on canvas on board

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Mary Ware, c. 1854

Robert Dowling

Purchased with funds provided by Mary Isabel Murphy and Rosalind Blair Murphy 2014

Omai, A Native of Ulaietea, 1774

Francesco Bartolozzi after Nathaniel Dance

Purchased with funds provided by Robert Oatley AO 2007

Lee Lin Chin

Lee Lin Chin, stylesetter and former broadcaster, was born in Indonesia and raised in Singapore, where in 1968 she began working in television and radio.

2 portraits in the collection

I dream of Sam Neill when I go to bed, 1986 Davida Allen

The actor, the artist, her life and her fantasies

Lust

Feeling sexy

Georges Antoni

Portrait, pastel on paper laid on canvas

Georges Antoni (b. 1975), fashion photographer, grew up in a small town in central Queensland.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of Mrs Sarah Fairfax, c. 1864

Edwin Dalton

Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Maisie, 1938-1939

Peter Purves Smith

Portrait, gouache on paper

Bequest of Lady Maisie Drysdale 2001

Jacqueline Mitelman

Recorded 2017

Prince Charles Edward Stuart

Louis Gabriel Blanchet

Ed Sheeran

Colin Davidson

Portrait, type C photograph from an original negative on paper

Hedda Morrison, 1941 (printed 2004)

Alastair Morrison

Gift of the artist 2004

Sir Asher Joel, n.d.

Louis Kahan AO

Portrait, pencil on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mrs Lily Kahan 2017
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Sir Cecil Colville

Portrait, type C Duraflex print on paper

Sir Cecil Colville (1891-1984), medical practitioner, was the first president of the Australian Medical Association.

1 portrait in the collection

Ada Bird Petyarre, 1990

Anne Zahalka

Gift of Leo Christie 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Kristina, 1984 (printed 2013)

Purchased 2013

Who is Lillie Roberts?

Talented wife for a talented husband

Tamara Tchinarova, 1938

Portrait, inkjet print and oil on canvas, mounted with inset axe pendant

Gift of Rex Dupain 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

What the tree saw: David Foster, 2018

Jacqui Stockdale

Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018

Andrew George Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, c.1879 attributed to Charles Nettleton

Diseased curiosity

Captain Moonlite et al on trial for murder

Just after 10.00 o'clock on 3 December 1879, four prisoners were brought from their cells at Darlinghurst Gaol and placed in the dock of a courtroom heaving with agitated spectators

James Gillray

James Gillray, caricaturist and printmaker, was born in Chelsea and learned the art of engraving as a youth in London.

1 portrait in the collection

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

NYSPP 2009

An annual event, the National Youth Self Portrait Prize seeks to encourage young people to embrace self portraiture and its expressive possibilities.

Portrait of Florence Broadhurst, 1968

Joshua Smith

Purchased 2007

'Amy-Blue' (Amy Winehouse)

Marlene Dumas

Alex Mitchell

Magazine article by Djon Mundine OAM, 2017

Alexander George Mitchell (1911-1997), academic, studied English literature and language at the University of Sydney and the University of London before joining the English department of the University of Sydney, where he assumed the McCaughey Chair of Early English Literature and Language in 1947.

1 portrait in the collection

Big shots

Djon Mundine OAM brings poignant memory and context to Martin van der Wal’s 1986 portrait photographs of storied Aboriginal artists.

Time and light

In Gallery Seven

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.

Theresa Byrnes

Theresa Byrnes (b. 1969) is a painter, writer and performance artist who first exhibited her paintings in 1986 at the age of sixteen.

1 portrait in the collection

John Kaldor, 1975 (printed 2002)

Gift of the artist 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Brett Whiteley, 1974

Gift of the artist 2003. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The Legend of Ruby and Archie

A bond in song

Colleen McCullough

The novelist Colleen McCullough (1937–2015) was born in Wellington, New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

OBEY

Shepard Fairey Posters

Shepard Fairey is best known for his iconic poster Obama/Hope which he made in support of Barack Obama for the 2008 US election.

Elizabeth Rouse

Elizabeth Rouse (née Adams, 1772–1849), colonial spouse, arrived in New South Wales as a free settler in 1801 with her husband, Richard Rouse (1774–1852) and their first two children, one of whom had been born on the voyage out.

1 portrait in the collection

Boyd to man

Christopher Chapman looks at influences and insight in the formative years of Arthur Boyd.

Eyes on the Prize

Australian Athletes in Focus

A short visual essay of some of the works in the National Youth Self Portrait Prize 2010.

Flash

Portrait, pen and ink, pencil on paper laid on cardboard

Introduction The National Portrait Gallery’s photographic exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus explores various interpretations of Australian sporting men and women.

Self portrait, n.d.

Ada May Plante

Gift of Dr Penny Olsen, Peter Woollard and Artemis Georgiades 2015

Matthew Reilly, 2006 (printed 2009)

Montalbetti + Campbell

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Sherbet, 1974

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

The Brontë Sisters (Anne Brontë; Emily Brontë; Charlotte Brontë)

Patrick Branwell Brontë

Kristina, 1986 (printed 2013)

Purchased 2013

Thomas Brassey

Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey (1836–1918), politician and governor, studied law and modern history at Oxford, but abandoned law for a career in politics two years after being called to the Bar.

1 portrait in the collection

Cathy Freeman, 1994

Montalbetti + Campbell

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

John Passmore

John Passmore (1904-1984), painter, studied with Julian Ashton in Sydney between the ages of fourteen and twenty-nine, and took some instruction from George Lambert.

1 portrait in the collection

Neil Murray, Bolac, VIC, 2004

John Elliott

Magazine article by Vincent Fantauzzo, 2022

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005

Portrait story

Artist Vincent Fantauzzo on dyslexia, connection and virtual sittings with Hugh Jackman.

An international troupe of two

Office romance

Nancy Wake - The White Mouse, 2001

Melissa Beowulf

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004

Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II (Blue)

Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II (Blue), 2001

Polly Borland

Purchased 2021

Of Burke, Wills ... and wills

Magazine article by David Sequeira, 2005

Infatuation and (ill-fated) exploration

1 to 6

The National Portrait Gallery's annual survey of student self portraiture highlights the processes of personal inquiry through portraiture by students from all levels across Australia.

Sir Joseph Banks, c. 1788

John Raphael Smith after Sir Benjamin West

Purchased 2010

Peter Elliott, 1964

Jon Molvig

Gift of Richard Elliott 2016. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Ernest Hutcheson

Ernest Hutcheson (1871-1951), pianist, composer and music teacher, started performing at the age of five.

1 portrait in the collection

Edward Knox Jnr and Thomas Forster Knox., c. 1855

Portrait, daguerreotype

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Peter Halliday in memory of Norah Knox 2010

John Firth-Smith, 1974

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

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023

Previous exhibition, 2013

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.

Paul Kelly and The Portraits

Aspects of singer songwriter Paul Kelly’s performance persona are communicated by portraits selected from a range of artists and leading music photographers in this focus exhibition.

Henry Mundy

Artist Henry Mundy arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1831 and took up a position as teacher of drawing, French and music at Ellinthorp Hall, a school near Ross established ‘with a view to the improvement of Young Ladies’.

4 portraits in the collection

Lloyd Rees from behind, 1979

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

Lloyd Rees full face, 1979

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

Society of Artists Selection Committee, 1907

Henry King

Purchased 2008

John Farnham AO

John Farnham (b.1949) has sustained a successful career in the Australian music industry for more than 40 years.

1 portrait in the collection

Simon Harsent

I like to think I'm an artist who uses photography as my medium, but I work commercially as a photographer and it's my full time occupation so I guess that defines me as a photographer or maybe a commercial artist?

Nikki Toole

Scottish-born photographer Nikki Toole (b. 1965) studied film and photography in London and Edinburgh before moving to Melbourne.

3 portraits in the collection

TJ Smith and Tulloch, 1960 (printed 2003)

Portrait, charcoal and oil on canvas

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

Elizabeth, 2019

Anthea da Silva

Gift of the artist 2020

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.

Kenneth Wyatt AM

Noongar, Yamatji, Wongi man, Kenneth George Wyatt AM (b. 1952) is an Australian politician.

1 portrait in the collection

Jarinyanu David Downs, 1986

Purchased 2005

Richard Larter

Richard Larter (1929-2014) was born in London, where he encountered and was influenced by the new generation of young British Pop artists of the 1950s and early 1960s.

6 portraits in the collection

Gladys Moncrieff OBE

Gladys Moncrieff (1892-1976), soprano, grew up in Queensland, where she first toured as 'Little Gladys - The Australian Wonder Child' with a small musical road show.

4 portraits in the collection

The Bath Butterfly

The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.

The world of Thea Proctor

Portrait, inkjet print on canvas

The world of Thea Proctor was the National Portrait Gallery's second exhibition to follow the life of a single person, following Rarely Everage: The lives of Barry Humphries.

Paddy Bedford, 2003

Jim Anderson

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Ivan Gaal

Ivan Gaal came to Australia as a refugee from his native Hungary in 1957.

1 portrait in the collection

Ada Bird Petyarre

Ada Bird Petyarre (c. 1930–2009), painter and printmaker, was an Anmatyerre woman from the Northern Territory, and one of seven sisters who all became notable artists.

1 portrait in the collection

All that fall artist interviews

Lawrence English, Ellis Hutch and Lee Grant talk about the works they created for All that fall.

Ada May Plante

Portrait, pastel and coloured pencil on paper

Ada May Plante (1875–1950), artist, was born in New Zealand and came to Melbourne with her family in 1888.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait (Hilda in the Chinoise hat)

Self portrait (Hilda in the Chinoise hat), c. 1913

Hilda Rix Nicholas

Gift of Bronwyn Wright 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Monochromatic Self-Portrait, 2000 by Genevieve Preston

Headspace 1

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Headspace showcases portrait art produced by secondary students from Year 7 to Year 12 in Government, Catholic and Independent schools in Canberra and its surrounding regions extending to Wollongong, Deniliquin, Leeton, Crookwell, Bombala, Narooma and Albury

Malcolm Fraser, Randwick Racecourse, 1975 (printed 2002)

Roger Scott

Purchased 2012

Dr John Yu, 2004

Ah Xian

Portrait, glazed ceramic

Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2004

Robin Sellick

Robin Sellick (b. 1967), photographer, is well known for his distinctive portraits of Australian actors, musicians, politicians and athletes.

17 portraits in the collection

Lee Lin Chin, 2005

Ingvar Kenne

Gift of the artist 2006

Gail Kelly, 2018

by Paul Newton

Commissioned with funds provided by Westpac Group and Optus 2018

Wurati

Portrait, cast bronze medallion on wood plaque

Wurati (active 1830s, d. 1842), was a Nuennone man from Bruny Island, a skilled hunter, boat builder and renowned storyteller who spoke five dialects.

2 portraits in the collection

Sir Bernard Heinze AC, 1985

Michael Meszaros

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Ray Marginson AM 2001

Cathryn Fitzpatrick

Toni Wilkinson

The portrait of Patrick White by Brett Whiteley

Patrick White at Centennial Park, 1979–1980

White Whiteley

Previous exhibition, 2012

Eleven works by Brett Whiteley, centred around his scintillating 'Patrick White at Centennial Park 1979-1980'.

Joe Darling (image plate from The Empire's Cricketers. London: Fine Art Society), 1905

an unknown artist after Albert Chevallier Tayler

Portrait, chromolithograph

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Marilyn Rowe, 1981

Graham Thorley

Portrait, transparency between mirror substrates in LED lightbox

Gift of the family of Graham Thorley in his memory and in tribute to Marilyn Rowe 2010

Tan Le, 2018

John Tsiavis

Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018

Christos Tsiolkas

Recorded 2017

To the end of the earth

The portrait of Dr. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster from 1780, is one of the oldest in the NPG's collection.

Murray Bail, c. 1980 (printed 2018)

Jacqueline Mitelman

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Noel Fraser Hickey, 1957

Nancy Menetrey

Gift of the artist 2021

2013-14 Acquisition Fund

Annual Appeal

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.

The Huxleys

Will Huxley grew up in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, and Garrett Huxley was raised on the Gold Coast, Queensland.

3 portraits in the collection

Susan Lord, c. 1840

Henry Mundy

Purchased 2015

Cathy Freeman, 2000

David Caird

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of David Caird and Melbourne Herald Sun 2003

The Hon. Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO

Quentin Bryce AD CVO (b. 1942), academic, lawyer and community and human rights advocate, was the first woman to be appointed governor-general of Australia.

2 portraits in the collection

Barton and Watson, 1902

G. H. Dancey

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Cathryn Fitzpatrick, 2006

Toni Wilkinson

Portrait, inkjet print

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006

D.A.S. Campbell (David Alexander Stewart Campbell), 1963

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Mary Newlinds and Sheena Simpson in memory of their father, D.A.S. Campbell, 2014

Gooseberry, widow of King Bungaree, 1836

William Fernyhough

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

Colleen McCullough, 1992-1993 (printed 2005)

Anthony Browell

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

Tim Burstall, Andamooka (filming of the Last of the Knucklemen)

Tim Burstall, Andamooka (filming of the Last of the Knucklemen), c. 1979

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006

Theresa Byrnes, 1999

Brook Andrew, Larry Rawling

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

Peace, the Man and Hope, 2005

Portrait, screenprint on five sheets of paper

Gift of Brook Andrew in memory of Emmaline Rose Charnock 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Mervyn Bishop

Mervyn Bishop (b. 1945), a Murri photographer, began a cadetship with the Sydney Morning Herald in 1963.

6 portraits in the collection

Irina Baronova

Irina Baronova (1919–2008) was one of the three legendary 'baby ballerinas' of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, who created an international dance sensation in the 1930s and 1940s.

1 portrait in the collection

Janet Holmes a Court AC

Janet Holmes à Court AC (b. 1943), businesswoman and philanthropist, graduated in science and worked as a teacher before marrying young Perth lawyer Robert Holmes à Court in 1966.

1 portrait in the collection

James T. Donovan, 1892

Tom Roberts

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

Purchased 2015

Sideshow Alley

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.

Brett Whiteley - portrait 2, 1975

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

Peter Drewett

Peter G. Drewett is a Grafton craftsman. Drewett grew up in difficult economic circumstances in Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

Wayne Lynch

Wayne Lynch (b. 1951), surfer and surfboard shaper, grew up in Lorne, Victoria, not far from Bells Beach.

2 portraits in the collection

Telphia, 1990 (printed 2013)

Purchased 2013

The black coat: Lily Brett, 1989

David Rankin OAM

Gift of Dr Gene Sherman AM and Brian Sherman AM 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Christos Tsiolkas, 1998 (printed 2009)

John Tsiavis

Purchased 2009

Christos Tsiolkas, 1998 (printed 2009)

John Tsiavis

Portrait, oil on composition board

Purchased 2009

Fiona Stanley, 2011

Mary Moore

Commissioned 2011

Phillip Gudthaykudthay, 1986

Significant Australian Women 1913–2013

Purchased 2005

First Ladies

Previous exhibition, 2013

First Ladies profiles women who have achieved noteworthy firsts over the past 100 years.

Jacques Arago, c. 1830s

Nicolas Maurin, Alexandre Sixdeniers

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009

Charles Dickens

Daniel Maclise

Peter Elliott AM

Peter Elliott AM (1927–2014) was an obstetrician, gynaecologist and gynaecological oncologist as well as a significant art collector and patron.

6 portraits in the collection

Self portrait, 1965

Jean Appleton

Gift of the Estate of Nicolaas van der Waarden 2013

Gladys Moncrieff, 1920s

Ruskin

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Sally Douglas 2009

Ellie Cole

Recorded 2021

William Beach

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on resin-coated paper

Bill Beach (1850-1935), sculler, came to New South Wales as a young boy with his English parents, who settled at Albion Park, NSW.

1 portrait in the collection

Marcia Ella, 2006

Sahlan Hayes

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006

Dillon Kombumerri, c. 2000

Two iBooks of authentic records

Gift of the artist 2004

Prison and death in the 19th century

Learning resources

These books include sixteen inmates including Ned Kelly, Captain Moonlite and Frederick Deeming and twelve sketches of the deceased, including several children. For Year 7 – 9 students.

Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM

Dr Elizabeth Cameron Dalman OAM (b. 1934), choreographer, teacher and performer, was born in Adelaide and trained in classical ballet and modern dance with Nora Stewart.

1 portrait in the collection

Rose Byrne, 2001 (printed 2004)

Karin Catt

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on resin-coated paper

Purchased 2005

Harry Williams, 2005

Sahlan Hayes

Purchased 2006

Portrait of Truganini, daughter of the Chief of Bruny Island, Van Diemens Land, c. 1835

Black and white history

an unknown artist, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office

English artist Benjamin Duterrau took up the cause of the Indigenous peoples of Tasmania with his detailed and sympathetic renderings.

Captain Matthew Flinders RN, 1814

Portrait, stipple engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012

A photographer’s glamorous friends

Nearest & Dearest

Community, arts, activism

The Hon. John Howard OM AC

The Hon. John Howard OM AC (b. 1939) was Prime Minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of Bennilong, a Native of New Holland

Portrait of Bennilong, a Native of New Holland, c. 1810

Magazine article by Stuart Purves, 2016

Purchased 2014

Bonfire of the vanities

Australian Galleries Director Stuart Purves tells the story of two portraits by John Brack.

Janine Burke

Janine Burke (b. 1952) art historian, biographer, novelist and curator, graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1974.

1 portrait in the collection

Pat Mackie, 2004

Nancy Borlase AM

Purchased 2004

Hélène Kirsova

Hélène Kirsova (1910–1962), dancer and founder of Kirsova Ballet, the first professional ballet company in Australia.

4 portraits in the collection

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009

In its second year at the National Portrait Gallery, and for the first time touring to other venues, the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 continues to present surprising perspectives on the nature of contemporary portrait photography.

Jarinyanu David Downs

Jarinyanu David Downs (c. 1925–1995), Wangkajunga/Walmajarri painter, printmaker and preacher, lived a traditional life in the Great Sandy Desert of West Australia until he was a young man.

2 portraits in the collection

Magda Szubanski AO

Magda Szubanski AO (b. 1961), actor and writer, was born in Liverpool, England and moved to Australia when she was four.

1 portrait in the collection

Hilary McPhee, 2015

Jacqueline Mitelman

Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2015

Maurice Felton

Maurice Appleby Felton (1803-1842) arrived in Sydney with his wife and four children in late 1839 as surgeon to the immigrant ship the Royal Admiral.

3 portraits in the collection

Arianne McNaught

I think the most important thing in capturing candid shots is to never take the photo when people are expecting you to press the shutter. The more poignant moments are not the stock standard images of people looking at the camera smiling but after or before when they are really interacting with each other.

Evonne Goolagong, 1973

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2004

Charles Chauvel

Charles Chauvel (1897-1959), actor and film-maker, worked on the sets of Snowy Baker films as a young man, and followed the great action hero to Hollywood in 1921.

1 portrait in the collection

Ben McNamara

Magazine article by Patrick McCaughey, 2015

This is Marissa Gallagher from Kintore, which if you're in Alice Springs, just go west until the WA border, just before that, a traditional area of Pintupi mob.

Self Portrait in red shirt, 1937 by Arthur Boyd

Arthur as Alyosha?

Patrick McCaughey explores a striking Boyd self portrait.

Kyle Vander-Kuyp, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

Amrita Hepi

Artists and Collectives

Bundjulung/Ngapuhi woman Amrita Hepi’s work considers the body’s relationship to personal histories and archive, and investigates dance as social function.

Kenneth Rowell AM

Kenneth Rowell AM (1920–1999), artist and theatre designer, grew up in Melbourne and became intent on a career in the theatre at a young age.

2 portraits in the collection

Shahleena Musk

Portrait, pastel on paper laid on canvas

Shahleena Musk is Larrakia lawyer from Darwin. She was the first Aboriginal person to graduate from the Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) and to be admitted to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory.

1 portrait in the collection

Charles John Fairfax, c. 1860

Edwin Dalton

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of John Fairfax Holdings Ltd 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe, 2018

Shirley Purdie

Portrait, natural ochre and pigments on canvas (36 parts)

Purchased 2019

True fella

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2011

Michael Desmond profiles the Australian songwriter and performer Neil Murray and his contribution to Australian music.

Vali Myers

Batchelder & Company Photo

Vali Myers (1930-2003) artist, vagabond and agitator, was born near Box Hill and moved to Melbourne at the age of eleven.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, c. 1870

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

Angelica Mesiti

Artists and Collectives

Internationally renowned, Paris-based artist Angelica Mesiti creates video installations that are absorbing and profound experiences for audiences.

Noah Taylor, 1994 (printed 2010)

Ross Honeysett

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2010

Study for a portrait of Dame Merlyn Myer DBE

Dame Margery Merlyn Baillieu Myer DBE

Previous exhibition, 1999

Dame Margery Merlyn Baillieu Myer DBE (1900–1982), philanthropist and fundraiser, was the daughter of a hotelier, George Baillieu.

1 portrait in the collection

Arthur Boyd Portraits

This is the first in a series of National Portrait Gallery exhibitions to survey the portraits painted by artists who are not thought of, primarily, as portrait painters

Rennie Ellis

Aussies All

Rennie Ellis: Aussies All is a celebration of the life and work of the late Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.

Lewis Morley

Myself and Eye

Lewis Morley has a great eye for a shot and a sharp ear for a pun

Portrait of Deborah Vernon Hackett, c. 1905

Florence Ada Fuller

Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2005

Garrett Huxley

an unknown artist, Joyce Gold Naval Chronicle Office

Garrett Huxley (b. 1973) was born in Melbourne and raised on the Gold Coast.

3 portraits in the collection

Captain Matthew Flinders RN, 1814

Portrait, stipple engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

David Rankin OAM

David Rankin OAM (b. 1946) came to Australia with his English parents at the age of two in 1948.

1 portrait in the collection

Will Huxley

Will Huxley (b. 1982) was born in Bath, England, emigrating with his family at the age of seven to grow up in the suburbs of Perth.

3 portraits in the collection

The Dissecting Room

Portrait, photograph on paper

Though initially developed by physicians, phrenology was taken up by certain non-medical practitioners who applied the theory to social questions such as education and criminal reform.

Harry and Penelope Seidler, 15 December 1958

John Hearder

Gift of Penelope Seidler AM 2021

Koko & Kiko (42nd Street Series), 1980 by Larry Clark

Best buds

It’s important to have a best bud when you’re growing up. For many boys the transition from boyhood through adolescence is defined by wanting to fit in.

Kondelea (Della) Elliott, 1979

Ivy Shore

Portrait, synthetic polymer paint on board

Gift of Jeannie Highet and Kim Buchan 2012

Johnny O'Keefe "A little bit louder now...", 1999

Ivan Durrant

Commissioned with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 1999

John David Armstrong

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2003

John David Armstrong (1857–1943) was a sideshow and vaudeville performer known as ‘The Australian Tom Thumb’.

2 portraits in the collection

A Singular Line

A newly acquired work by Stella Bowen adds to the National Portrait Gallery's growing collection of important Australian self-portraits.

Four from the 30s

Australia's tradition of sculpted portraits stretches back to the early decades of the nineteenth century and continues to sustain a group of dedicated sculptors.

Franchesca Cubillo, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

Margaret Fink, 1975

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

Portrait of Bennilong, Native of New Holland

Portrait of Bennilong, Native of New Holland, c. 1798

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008

Naomi Watts

Naomi Watts (b. 1968), actress, was born in England and came to Australia from Wales at the age of fourteen.

1 portrait in the collection

Ian Thorpe, 2002

James Houston

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002

Jeff Carter with his dog Annie Rose at Foxground NSW

Jeff Carter with his dog Annie Rose at Foxground NSW, 2000 (printed 2017)

Robert McFarlane

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Walter Langhammer

Walter Langhammer went to India before World War 2, fleeing the Nazis in Austria.

1 portrait in the collection

Toni Collette

Toni Collette (b. 1972), actor, producer, singer and songwriter, spent much of her childhood in the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown and left school at 16 to join the Australian Theatre for Young People.

1 portrait in the collection

Tim Fairfax AC, 2018

Russell Shakespeare

Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018

Janet Holmes á Court, 2001 (printed 2011)

Lorrie Graham

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Mitch Cairns

Mitch Cairns (b. 1984), painter and cartoonist, won the 2017 Archibald Prize with a portrait of his partner, artist Agatha Gothe-Snape.

1 portrait in the collection

At the Pantechnetheca, Exhibition, Eastern Arcade, Dominick Sonsee, the smallest man in the world

The Freak Show

Many performers availed themselves of the services of photographic studios, posing for carte de visite portraits that served as souvenirs and as instruments in the making of renown and notoriety.

Ngarranggarni

The third row of paintings come from Ngarranggarni (Dreaming).

Naomi Watts, 2003

Peter Brew-Bevan

Portrait, encaustic on canvas

Gift of the artist 2004

(Margaret Whitlam) by the strength of her skin

(Margaret Whitlam) by the strength of her skin, 1998

Kim Spooner

Gift of the artist 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

E.O. Hoppé

Emil Otto Hoppe (1878–1972) is considered one of the most important and influential portrait and documentary photographers of the twentieth century.

2 portraits in the collection

William Hardy Wilson

William Hardy Wilson (1881-1955) - or Hardy Wilson, as he styled himself - is regarded as one of the most significant and visionary Australian architects of the twentieth century.

1 portrait in the collection

Ken Wyatt, 2019 (printed 2020)

Alex Ellinghausen

Purchased 2022

Mrs Woods and ‘Ere, 2013

Karla Dickens

Purchased 2019

Mark Ella AM

Mark Ella AM (b. 1959) was one of four Australians named amongst the eleven inaugural ‘legends’ of the International Rugby Board Hall of Fame in 2013.

1 portrait in the collection

Quentin Bryce, 2002 (printed 2011)

Lorrie Graham

Five Years of National Portrait Gallery Commissions

Purchased 2011

Making Portraits

The considered matching of artist to subject has produced an amazing collection of unique and original works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery

John Bertrand

John Bertrand AO (b. 1946) is a successful yachtsman, Olympian, sports administrator, businessman and philanthropist.

1 portrait in the collection

Jessica Mauboy

Jessica Mauboy (b. 1989), Darwin-born singer, songwriter and actor, is a descendant of the KuKu Yalanji nation of Far North Queensland.

1 portrait in the collection

Barbara McCarthy, c. 2000

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2006

Gift of the artist 2004

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.

Ruby Hunter, 1996 (printed 2012)

Jacqueline Mitelman

Purchased 2012

Therese Desmond, 1919-1920

James Burnside

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Madeleine Howell 2013

Gary Ella, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

LeGarde Twins, c. 1966

Jozef Vissel

Portrait, natural earth pigments and synthetic polymer paint on linen

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2015

Jarinyanu Dancing at Broome Festival, 1990

Jarinyanu David Downs

Purchased 2017

Allan Lowe, c. 1955

Reshid Bey

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Alan Lowe and Marian Lowe 2000

Bart Willoughby, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

Doodles of the Diva

Three tiny sketches of Dame Nellie Melba in the NPG collection were created by the artist who was to go on to paint the most imposing representation of the singer: Rupert Bunny.

Pixie O'Harris

Pixie O’Harris MBE (1903–1991), author and illustrator, was born Rona Olive Harris in Cardiff, one of the eight children of painter, George Frederick Harris.

1 portrait in the collection

William Robertson, c. 1852

Portrait, 1/6 plate daguerreotype, hand coloured with case

Gift of Fiona Turner (née Robertson) and John Robertson 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Albert Falzon

Albert Falzon (b. 1945), film maker and photographer, was in the Australian army and worked for Australian Surfing World magazine before co-founding the Australian surf magazine Tracks in 1970.

1 portrait in the collection

James G. Beaney

James George Beaney (1828–1891), doctor and philanthropist, completed an apprenticeship to a surgeon in his home town of Canterbury, Kent, before leaving to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

1 portrait in the collection

William Strutt

William Strutt arrived in Melbourne in 1850 having undertaken his training in art in Paris in the late 1830s.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas and John Clarke, bushrangers, photographed in Braidwood Gaol

Thomas and John Clarke, bushrangers, photographed in Braidwood Gaol, 1867

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on laid down on a section cut from a nineteenth century album page

Purchased 2019

Hilda Rix Nicholas

Magazine article by David Sequeira, 2004

Emily Hilda Rix left Australia in March 1907, having trained for three years at the National Gallery School.

1 portrait in the collection

Time is precious

Headspace5: Crystal Gazing highlighted the diversity of materials and techniques that young people use for self expression. David Sequeira presents a personal view of three works in the exhibition.

Richard Nicoll

Richard Nicoll (1977‒2016), fashion designer, was born in London but spent much of his childhood in Perth.

1 portrait in the collection

Thilin-Thilin Gooragall Nyajaringil Garnkiny-nu (white gum tree, mother for the moon), 2018 by Shirley Purdie

Storytelling

The fourth row of paintings interweave Ngarranggarni, memories, relationships and Country.

Steve Kilbey, 1981 (printed 2018)

Gary Ede

Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018

The Right Honourable William Pitt

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) was Tory prime minister of Great Britain from 1783 to 1801, and of United Kingdom from 1804 to 1806.

1 portrait in the collection

Uncommon Australians

Previous exhibition, 2015

This exhibition showcases portraits acquired through the generosity of the National Portrait Gallery’s Founding Patrons, L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC.

Tom LeGarde

Tom LeGarde (1931–2021) and Ted LeGarde (1931–2018), 'The LeGarde Twins', were early pioneers of country music.

1 portrait in the collection

Rhoda Roberts

Rhoda Roberts AO (b. 1960) is a Bundjalung woman from northern New South Wales, and a producer, director, writer, broadcaster, performer and arts executive.

1 portrait in the collection

Grace Cossington Smith OBE

Grace Cossington Smith OBE (1892–1984) was a pioneer of modernist art in Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Lewis Morley

Lewis Morley (1925–2013) established his reputation as one of the key British photographers of the 1960s and is known for his iconic image of a nude Christine Keeler straddling an Arne Jacobsen chair.

50 portraits in the collection

Pat Mackie

Pat Mackie (1914–2009), union leader, led the Mount Isa strike of 1964–65 that polarised the town and almost bankrupted Mount Isa Mining.

1 portrait in the collection

Ted LeGarde

Magazine article by Emma Batchelor, 2022

Ted LeGarde (1931–2018) and Tom LeGarde (1931–2021), ‘The LeGarde Twins’, were early pioneers of country music.

1 portrait in the collection

Australian Dance Party and Catapult Dance performing Connecting Stories: Innovations at the National Portrait Gallery, 2022 Lorna Sim

Let’s dance

Emma Batchelor uncovers the compelling contemporary dance made in response to the works in Shakespeare to Winehouse.

Bruce Petty

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

Murray Bail

Portrait, oil and hand-stitching with diamantes on canvas

Murray Bail (b. 1941), writer, was born in Adelaide and spent several years in India and England in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

3 portraits in the collection

Margaret Fink, 1989

Kerrie Lester

Gift of the artist 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Mary Windeyer, 1850s

Portrait, watercolour and gouache on ivory

Gift of the Windeyer family 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Simon Tedeschi

Simon Tedeschi (b. 1981), award-winning classical pianist, grew up in Sydney, and essentially abandoned his school lessons as an adolescent to concentrate on his piano studies with Neta Maughan.

1 portrait in the collection

Duke of Wellington, 1841

John Lucas

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Portrait of Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke (Sass & Bide)

Portrait of Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke (Sass & Bide), 2008

Deborah Paauwe

Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2008

John Dease

Conly John Paget Dease (1906-1979), actor and broadcaster, spent thirty years as one of the signature voices of the ‘Golden Age’ of Australian radio.

1 portrait in the collection

Ron Grainer, printed 2003

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Lewis Morley 2004

Mrs Woods, 2013

Karla Dickens

Portrait, cast bronze relief medallion

Gift of the artist 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Charles Joseph La Trobe, 1853

Thomas Woolner

Purchased 2006

Martin Sharp

Martin Sharp (1942-2013), printmaker, painter, cartoonist, designer, songwriter and film-maker, is one of Australia's foremost pop artists.

7 portraits in the collection

Layne Beachley AO

Magazine article by Lauren Dalla, 2003

Layne Beachley AO (b. 1972), former surfer and businesswoman, is the world's most successful female professional surfer.

2 portraits in the collection

An Intimate Portrait of an Australian Artist in 1930

Lauren Dalla examines the life of Australian painter Roy de Maistre and his portrait by Jean Shepeard.

Evonne Goolagong (Cawley) AC MBE

Evonne Goolagong Cawley AC MBE (b. 1951), Wiradjuri tennis champion, was the number one women's tennis player in the world in 1971 and 1976.

3 portraits in the collection

Neville Gruzman, 1968

Eric Smith

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2007

Nicholas Paspaley Jnr

Nicholas Paspaley Jnr AC (b. 1948) is chair of the Paspaley Group of Companies, with interests in pearling, aviation, retail, pastoral holdings and commercial properties in Australia and internationally.

2 portraits in the collection

Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford

Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford (1920/1924–2007), also known as Goowoomji or Guwumji, artist and Gija elder, was born on Bedford Downs Station, near Warmun in Western Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Cate Blanchett AC

Cate Blanchett AC (b. 1969), actor and humanitarian, graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992, joined the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) and soon received the Sydney Theatre Critics' Circle award for Best Newcomer for Kafka Dances (1993).

4 portraits in the collection

Dorothy Porter

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2015

Dorothy Porter (1954–2008), poet and writer, grew up in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, graduated from the University of Sydney in 1975 and taught creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Village people

Christopher Chapman discusses Rod McNicol's photographic portrait series Newcomers to my village.

Australian Visit

Previous exhibition, 1999

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.

Glossy - Faces Magazines Now

Magazines are the portrait galleries of the 90s... Glossy is about magazines. The exhibition presents the work of eight photographers, Australian by birth or long-term residency, who are producing portraits for publication in magazines around the world.

Self portrait, 2002

Barry Humphries

Chefs, winemakers, providores

Gift of the Margaret Olley Art Trust 2003

Masters of Fare

Masters of fare: chefs, winemakers, providores celebrates men and women who have championed the unique culinary characteristics and produce of Australia, enriching our lives with new ideas and new flavours over the past forty years.

Andres Serrano

Previous exhibition, 2014

Andres Serrano, photographer, grew up in New York. After leaving school at fifteen to pursue a career as an artist he attended the Brooklyn Museum Art School between 1967 and 1969.

1 portrait in the collection

Rick Amor

21 Portraits

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 69

In conversation with Aretha Brown, Pieter Roelofs on Vermeer, humanoid robots, the nationwide search for Archibald portraits, and 25 years of collecting at the National Portrait Gallery.

Joseph Dalton Hooker, c. 1880s

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

William Macleod

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

Deborah Mailman AM

Deborah Mailman AM (b. 1972), Bidjara and Māori (Ngāti Porou and Te Arawa) actor and singer, is the daughter of Maori and Aboriginal parents who met when her father was touring on the rodeo circuit.

1 portrait in the collection

Margaret Fink AO

Margaret Fink AO (b. 1933), film producer, was a key figure in the renaissance of Australian cinema in the 1970s.

2 portraits in the collection

Ron Grainer, 1965 (printed 2002)

Portrait, offset lithograph on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Boy with surfboard cross: David Rastovich, 1999 (printed 2005)

Scott Redford

Gift of the artist 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

A Collins Street Surgeon "Patients and Diamonds" [Dr Beaney F.R.C.S.], 1874

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Samantha Cook, c. 2000

Gift of the artist 2004

Rhodri G. Davies

Rhodri Glyn Davies worked as a television cameraman and director of documentaries while pursuing his interest in photography, exhibiting with a group of artists called Quincunx in Wales and Scotland.

1 portrait in the collection

Ali Cobby Eckermann

Ali Cobby Eckermann (b. 1963), Yankunytjatjara/Kothaka author and poet, was born in Adelaide.

1 portrait in the collection

Tracey Holmes

Tracey Holmes (b. 1966), sports broadcaster and journalist, has covered twelve Olympic Games and was the first woman to host an Australian national sports program, Grandstand.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Vanity Fair Portraits

Photographs 1913-2008

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

Fiona Stanley AC

Fiona Stanley AC (b. 1946), paediatric epidemiologist, is a passionate advocate for children and young people.

2 portraits in the collection

Leanne Benjamin AM OBE

Portrait, oil on cardboard

Leanne Benjamin AM OBE (b. 1964) was Principal Dancer with the Royal Ballet between 1993 and 2013.

1 portrait in the collection

Self portrait, c. 1934

Stella Bowen

Purchased 2003

Dr Who?

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2002

It is not well known that the person who composed the famous theme music for the BBC's Doctor Who series was Australian Ron Grainer.

Cathy Freeman OAM

Cathy Freeman OAM (b. 1973) won the 400m Olympic Gold medal in front of her home crowd in Sydney in 2000 in one of the all-time great Australian sporting moments.

5 portraits in the collection

Nicholas Paspaley Jnr, 2018

Andrew Bonneau

Commissioned with funds provided by Ross Adler AC 2018

Australian of the Year

Inspiring a Nation

Magazine article by Karen Quinlan AM, 2021

The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.

Give me five

National Portrait Gallery director Karen Quinlan AM nominates her quintet of favourites from the collection, with early twentieth-century ‘selfies’ filling the roster.

Janet Dawson

When soulmates Janet Dawson and Michael Boddy moved from Sydney to a property, Boddy was clear about why: ‘Our marriage is one long conversation - we moved to the bush so we could talk to each other without so many interruptions.’

Tan Le, 2018

by John Tsiavis

Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018

Small worlds

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on cabinet card

Bess Norriss Tait created miniature watercolour portraits full of character and life.

Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois, Governor of South Australia, 1881

Solomon Studios

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

William Baker Ashton

William Baker Ashton (1800-1854) was the first governor of Adelaide Gaol.

1 portrait in the collection

John Gould

John Gould (1804–1881) is known as the ‘father of Australian ornithology’ for his Birds of Australia, published in seven volumes between 1840 and 1848.

1 portrait in the collection

Yang Na

Born 1983, Chongqing, Sichuan Province. Lives and works in Beijing.

Ruby Hunter

Ruby Hunter (1955-2010), singer/songwriter, was a Ngarrindjeri/ Kukatha/ Pitjantjatjara woman from South Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

John Russell

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell KG GCMG PC (1792 –1878) was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies from 1839 to 1841 and served twice as Prime Minister of Great Britain, in 1846-1852 and 1865-1866.

1 portrait in the collection

Robert Hughes, 1996

Rex Dupain

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Goollabal (Rainbow Serpent), 2018 by Shirley Purdie

Memories

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on composition board

The second row of paintings recall stories relating to specific sites, experiences and activities.

Jane Mander Jones, 1853

Henry Robinson Smith

Gift of Susanna de Vienne, Sarah Wood and David Lloyd Jones 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

David Jones, 1853

Henry Robinson Smith

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on composition board

Gift of Susanna de Vienne, Sarah Wood and David Lloyd Jones 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Friends

Warwick Baker’s photos of his friends are intimate. They hold a stillness that allows their subjects to be at ease.

J.C. Williamson, c. 1913

John Longstaff

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2003

Gift of the family of Aimée Viola Horsley, daughter of J.C. Williamson 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Myself and Eye

Magda Keaney speaks with Lewis Morley about his photographic career and the major retrospective of his work on display at the NPG.

R. M. Williams AO CMG

RM (Reginald Murray) Williams AO CBE (1908-2003), saddlery, boot and clothing manufacturer, miner and author, moved to Adelaide from his birthplace near the Flinders Rangers when he was 10.

1 portrait in the collection

General Birdwood, the Idol of Anzac, taking a dip in the sea after a hard days work 1915

In the thick of it

Magazine article by Alexandra Roginski, 2015

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.

Getting a head

Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.

Out of the blocks

Early sporting fame

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2019

Dawn Fraser, Lionel Rose, Shane Gould and Cathy Freeman

Portfolio of 54 portraits compiled by Queen Victoria, 1859–1861 by John Jabez Edwin Mayall, Camille Silvy, Frances Day and William Bambridge

Queen of cartes

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.

William Yang

Portrait, oil on canvas board

William Yang (b. 1943) is a pre-eminent Australian photographer known for an intensely sustained body of work that examines issues of cultural and sexual identity, and which unflinchingly documents the lives of his friends and community and his own lived experience with curiosity, sensitivity and humour.

15 portraits in the collection

Geoffrey Tozer, 1966

Rollo Thomson

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Geoffrey Tozer 2012

Woureddy [Wurati], an Aboriginal Chief of Van Diemen's Land, 1835

Benjamin Law

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Tim Fairfax AC

Tim Fairfax AC (b.1946), company director, grazier and philanthropist, is a founding benefactor of the National Portrait Gallery and a former chair of its board of directors.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, c. 1814

Thomas Phillips

Purchased 2011

First Australian first-class cricket team

The ‘first Australian first-class cricket team to tour England and North America’ was in fact the second Australian cricket side to contest matches internationally (a team of Indigenous players having done so in 1868), but it is considered the first official national representative team to tour overseas.

1 portrait in the collection

Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue AC CBE DSG

Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG (1932–2024), a Yankunytjatjara woman, dedicated her life’s work to advancing the rights and wellbeing of Australia’s First Peoples.

2 portraits in the collection

William Baker Ashton, First Governor of Adelaide Gaol, c. 1849

Henry H. Glover

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Johnny Day

Magazine article by Christopher Baker, 2013

‘The Australian Wonder’, Johnny Day (1856–1885), was an undefeated world-champion juvenile walker.

1 portrait in the collection

Hot Scots

James Holloway describes the first portraits you encounter when entering the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

No Laughing Matter

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2002

The biographical exhibition of Barry Humphries was the first display of its kind at the National Portrait Gallery.

Jack Brabham, 1967 (printed 2012)

Brian McInerney

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

David Strachan

Archived media releases 2015

David Strachan (1919–1970), painter and printmaker, was educated at Geelong Grammar School and then studied art at the Slade School in London.

2 portraits in the collection

National arts and history? Yes, please

27 May 2015

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.

Arthur Murch

Archived media releases 2021

Arthur Murch, artist, is best-known as a painter in a colourful cubistic style, but he was occupied with sculpture throughout his career.

8 portraits in the collection

Announcing... Jonathan Jones Bogong Cluster: Physically distant, socially connected

5 January 2021

A new light installation by Jonathan Jones reflects on the importance of community through the lens of his Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi heritage, whilst also acting as a prompt for gallery visitors to maintain social distancing.

Lady Deborah Vernon Hackett

Lady Deborah Vernon Hackett (1887–1965) was a mining company director and philanthropist.

1 portrait in the collection

The mystery of Enoch Arden

Tennyson's Enoch Arden was inspired by a story that Thomas Woolner passed on to him – but whose story and of whom?

John Landy AC CVO MBE

Magazine article by Sarah Hill, 2001

Melbourne-born track and field athlete John Landy AC CVO MBE (1930–2022) came to the nation’s attention as a young man in the mid-1950s, as he followed his first Olympic competition at Helsinki in 1952 with a series of extraordinary races over the course of the next four years.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Captain Charles Ulm

The Wonder Years

Sarah Hill introduces the portrait busts of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Captain Charles Ulm by Enid Fleming.

Eating the seasons

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2019

Anne Sanders imbibes Tony Bilson’s gastronomic revolution.

Speed demon

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2003

Scott Redford discusses his dynamic portrait commission of motorcycling champion and 2008 Young Australian of the Year Casey Stoner.

Australians in Hollywood

The exhibition Australians in Hollywood celebrated the achievements of Australians in the highly competitive American film industry.

Peace, the Man and Hope (Anthony Mundine), 2005 by Brook Andrew and Larry Rawling (printer)

In focus

Magazine article, 2017

Brook Andrew, Marcia Langton and Anthony Mundine.

Gallery unveils Portrait of Mark Ella

12 May 2016

Last night in Sydney, the National Portrait Gallery unveiled a newly commissioned portrait of Australian sporting legend Mark Ella AM.

A Path of Focus: Portrait of Cate and Bronte Campbell

Cate Campbell OAM

Sisters Bronte Campbell (b. 1994) and Cate Campbell (b. 1992), champion swimmers, were born in Malawi to South African parents, and took up competitive swimming after the family settled in Brisbane in 2001.

1 portrait in the collection

Bronte Campbell OAM

Archived media releases 2013

1 portrait in the collection

Angus Trumble National Portrait Gallery Director

National Portrait Gallery Director announced

20 December 2013

The National Portrait Gallery welcomes Angus Trumble

Master Johnny Day, Australian Champion Pedestrian, c. 1866

Portrait, albumen photograph carte de visite

Purchased 2014

Dame Margaret Scott AC DBE

Dame Margaret Scott AC DBE (1922-2019) ballerina and teacher, was scarred by her education in a Johannesburg convent boarding school and left her home on a Swaziland farm in 1939.

1 portrait in the collection

200 Years of Portraiture

To celebrate his family bicentenary, Malcolm Robertson looks at the portraiture legacy left by his ancestors.

Henry Edwards

Henry (Harry) Edwards (1827–1891), actor and entomologist, arrived in Melbourne in 1853 after a short-lived attempt at studying for a career in law.

1 portrait in the collection

Arcadia: Sound of the sea

Exhibition introduction

Portrait, inkjet print from a scanned colour transparency on paper

One night in the spring of 1970 in an old house in Whale Beach, north of Sydney, John Witzig, Albe Falzon and David Elfick put together the first issue of Tracks, playing Neil Young’s album Harvest over and over again as they pasted up galleys of type.

Albert Namatjira, c. 1954-1958 (printed 2017)

Charles Chauvel

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Clifton Pugh

Australians

Magazine article by Tamsin Hong, 2016

This exhibition offers a comprehensive display of Clifton Pugh's portraits revealing his development and growth from tonal paintings to a unique style that was in demand from politicians, artists, academics and Australian personalities.

Rev. Victor B. Walls and Mrs. Walls, Trinidad, B.W.I., c.1930

The first nurse

Tamsin Hong recounts the tale of Marion Smith, the only known Australian Indigenous servicewoman of World War One.

Matthew Burnett

Matthew Burnett (1839–1896), the ‘Yorkshire Evangelist’, spent more than twenty years denouncing alcohol in the Australian colonies.

1 portrait in the collection

Subtle emotion

Christopher Chapman considers photographer Rozalind Drummond's portrait of author Nam Le.

Dora Byrne, 1951

Richard von Marientreu

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Leslie Walford AM 2013

All the world's a stage

Magazine article by Tara James, 2022

Joan Sutherland, Robert Helpmann and Raigh Roe

Introversion from High Jinks in the Hydrangeas, 2020 Tamara Dean

In our nature

Tara James chats with award-winning artist Tamara Dean about portraiture prizes, the environment and the strength of women.

May Emmeline Wirth

May Emmeline Wirth (1894–1978), circus performer, was once described as the ‘greatest lady bareback rider of all time’.

1 portrait in the collection

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022)

9 September 2022

Media

The National Portrait Gallery is deeply saddened by the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Throughout her 70-year reign, Her Majesty represented graciousness, humanity and stability during times of enormous social change.

Reg Livermore, Pitt Street, Sydney, 1965 (printed 2020)

Robert McFarlane

Portrait, coloured chalk on artist board

Purchased 2020

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (future Queen Elizabeth II)

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (future Queen Elizabeth II), 1942-1943

Charles Wheeler

Purchased 2019

Herra Pahlasari

by Aminudin TH Siregar

Archived media releases 2015

At the time of Herra Pahlasari’s birth in 1978, her academic parents were living in Canberra.

Last week to vote for your favourite portrait

1 June 2015

The National Portrait Gallery’s National Photographic Portrait Prize 2015 will close Monday 8 June 2015, this is the last week to visit the exhibition in Canberra and vote for your favourite portrait in the People’s Choice.

Dr Gene Sherman AM

Dr Gene Sherman AM (b. 1947) is Chairman and Executive Director of Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, a family philanthropic enterprise dedicated to the public exhibition of significant contemporary art from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

3 portraits in the collection

Nancy Wake AC

Nancy Wake AC (1912–2011) was one of the most-decorated women of the Second World War.

1 portrait in the collection

NPPP 2009 exhibition essay

Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2009 Prize.

International issue

Magazine article by The Huxleys, 2022

Michael Desmond looks at the history of the Vanity Fair magazine in conjunction with the exhibition Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008

Nusra Latif Qureshi

Contributing artists

Born: 1973, Lahore, Pakistan
Works: Melbourne

Style Over Substance 2020 (still), 2020 The Huxleys

Observation point

Growing up feeling isolated, ostracised and ornate in the heated homogeny of the suburbs of Perth and the Gold Coast we often longed and dreamed for an escape.

Margaret Robertson, c. 1863

Batchelder & O'Neill

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

David Lloyd Jones

David Lloyd Jones (1931–1961) was the great-grandson of the original David Jones – who founded the eponymous department store in Sydney in 1838 – and the eldest son of Sir Charles Lloyd Jones (1878–1958), who was chairman of David Jones Ltd from 1920 until his death.

1 portrait in the collection

Olegas Truchanas

Magazine article by Dr David Hansen, 2022

Olegas Truchanas (1923-1972) was born in 1923 in Siauliai, Lithuania.

1 portrait in the collection

Unheroic Materialism: little harmless fragments of memory and association: a portrait of Angus Trumble, 2019 Evert Ploeg

The last word

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

Ellyse Perry

Ellyse Perry (b.1990) has represented Australia in both cricket and soccer, making her the only current dual international in Australian women’s sport.

2 portraits in the collection

Hilary McPhee AO

Archived media releases 2012

Hilary McPhee AO (b. 1941), writer and editor, began her career at Meanjin before starting a small magazine, Theatre.

1 portrait in the collection

Animation 1 from the series Hereinbefore, 2012 by Laura Moore

iD Digital Portraiture Award winner announced

2 August 2012

The inaugural winner of the $10,000 iD Digital Portraiture Award was announced this morning at the National Portrait Gallery.

Bewitching

Magazine article by Roger Neill, 2006

Roger Neill delves into the life of a lesser-known Australian diva, Frances Alda.

The Coronation Theatre, Westminster Abbey: A Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2012

Imagination

Dr Sarah Engledow tells the story of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee portrait by Australian artist Ralph Heimans.

Eileen Dunne in The Hospital for Sick Children, 1940

The incomparable Beaton

To accompany the exhibition Cecil Beaton: Portraits, held at the NPG in 2005, this article is drawn from Hugo Vickers's authorised biography, Cecil Beaton (1985).

Cooey! An Australian Song

Magazine article by Julia Gillard AC, 2015

"Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey—Love has caught the strain, Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey, Coo-ey—it whispers back again." The “Australian lady” who composed these fruity lyrics was none other than Desda— Jane Davies, sometime Messiter (née Price) of Leddicott, Lavender Bay.

Joan Alone

Julia Gillard pays poignant tribute to her friend and mentor, the late Joan Kirner, Victoria’s first and only female premier.

Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM

Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM (b. c 1947) is a senior Tjanpi Desert Weaver with work spanning across printmaking, ceramics and fibre-based work.

1 portrait in the collection

Ron Mueck

Ron Mueck (b. 1958), sculptor, first attracted widespread attention in 1997, when his poignant work Dead Dad was featured in the landmark exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection at the Royal Academy, London and subsequently shown in Berlin and New York.

1 portrait in the collection

Arianne McNaught

An interview with the photographer.

Henry Wade

Archived media releases 2014

Henry Wade (1810–1854), surveyor, was trained in surveying at Dublin College before being employed as a civilian assistant by the Royal Engineers Corps.

1 portrait in the collection

Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award 2014

22 August 2014

Press releases for media.

William P. Dowling

William Paul Dowling (1824–1877) is thought to have studied art in his native Dublin before settling in London, where he worked as a draughtsman while trying to establish himself as a portraitist.

1 portrait in the collection

Elizabeth Roberts

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Elizabeth Roberts (1812–1833) was the daughter of Warwickshire-born William Roberts (1754–1819) and his wife, Jane (née Longhurst, c.

1 portrait in the collection

Naked nostalgia

Penelope Grist reminisces about the halcyon days of a print icon, before the infusion of the internet’s shades of grey.

Leah King-Smith

Contributing artists

Born: 1957, Gympie, QLD
Works: Brisbane

Portrait of Ambrose Patterson, 1901-1902

Hugh Ramsay

Magazine article by Karl James, 2016

Gift of the Estate of John Oswald Wicking 2003

Portrait of Private Edward Lello 1915 by Darge Photographic Company

Final frame

Karl James reflects on soldier portraiture during the Great War.

The personal and the historical

Where do we draw a line between the personal and the historical? Although she died in Melbourne in 1975, when I was not quite eleven years old, I have the vividest memories of my maternal grandmother Helen Borthwick.

Lustre, held by a Groom, ca. 1762 by George Stubbs

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.”

Sherbet, 1974 (printed 2002)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2002
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Dorothy Porter, 2001-2002

Rick Amor

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

Gift of Andrea Goldsmith 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Showing character

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

Captain W Kinghorne, 1834

Thomas James Lempriere

Archived media releases 2013

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007

On train from New York to Memphis, July 4, 1956 by Alfred Wertheimer

Elvis at 21 media information

25 October 2013

Press releases and images downloads for media.

HM Queen Elizabeth II, 2001

Polly Borland

Purchased 2002

Matthew Abbott

Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery

An interview with the photographer.

Lucy Escott, c. 1861

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite, hand coloured on card

Purchased 2009

Twenty new portraits marking Portrait Gallery’s twentieth birthday

21 August 2018

Magazine article by Olivier Krischer, 2016

To celebrate the National Portrait Gallery’s twentieth anniversary as an institution, twenty portraits of outstanding Australian individuals have been commissioned for the permanent collection. This is the largest undertaking for the Gallery’s commissioning program in its twenty-year existence.

Untitled from The Other Shore 2014-15, by Wei Leng Tay

Insight and identity

Olivier Krischer in conversation with photographer Wei Leng Tay.

Gustavus Brooke, c. 1865

Burman and Son

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

James Donovan

James T Donovan (1861–1922), journalist, Catholic historian and amateur singer, was born into an Irish Catholic family in Sydney and grew up in Womerah Avenue, Darlinghurst.

1 portrait in the collection

Caroline Chisholm

Magazine article by Michael Wardell, 2016

Caroline Chisholm (1808–1877), philanthropist and political agitator, spent almost two decades working to improve conditions for immigrants to Australia.

2 portraits in the collection

Bree Pickering in front of Mikala Dwyer, Chromakinda, 2022, installation view, Murray Art Museum Albury

Bree Pickering appointed Director of the National Portrait Gallery

7 February 2023

Media

The Board of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia announced the appointment of Bree Pickering to the role of Director.

Michael Wardell – Country of birth: Ireland 2014 by Jacques van der Merwe

Look who's coming to dinner

Michael Wardell’s personal insight into Jacques van der Merwe’s New Arrivals.

The Burke and Wills Monument, 1869

Thomas Foster Chuck

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Ahmad Sabra

We were in Gaza shooting a documentary and we had heard about the orphanages and wanted to visit and document some of the children who had lost parents during the wars in Gaza.

Leigh Bowery, 1984

Robyn Beeche

Gift of Claudia Hyles, Dr Christiane Lawin-Bruessel, Gwenda Matthews, Gael Newton, Anne O'Hehir, Susan Smith and Dominic Thomas in memory of our friend, Robyn Beeche 2016

Tough & Tender Media Release

14 July 2016

Photographs from internationally acclaimed artists Robert Mapplethorpe, Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, Collier Schorr and Chris Burden along with contemporary Australian artists, Rozalind Drummond and Warwick Baker will call the National Portrait Gallery home during our extraordinary winter exhibition Tough and Tender.

Lowitja O'Donoghue, 2006

Robert Hannaford AM

Commissioned with funds donated by BHP Billiton Limited, Rio Tinto Aboriginal Fund, Newmont Australia Limited, Reconciliation Australia, Hon Paul Keating and Hon Fred Chaney 2006

Russell Crowe, 1995 (printed 2016)

Stuart Spence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Lovers of light

Dr Sarah Engledow traces the significant links between Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo and Evelyn Chapman through their portraits.

The selfie stick

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2019

Last week ABC Television came to interview me about selfie sticks. The story was prompted by the announcement that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has lately prohibited the use of these inside their galleries. So far as I am aware we have not yet encountered the phenomenon, but no doubt we will before too long.

Satoshi Tokuhiro at Horai Gorge, Takaruzuka, Hyogo from Young Samurai – Bodybuilders of Japan Photography by Tamotsu Yato

Way of the body

Christopher Chapman reveals the intersection of iconoclastic Japanese figures Yukio Mishima and Tamotsu Yato.

Automatic for the people: Casey Stoner, 2008

Scott Redford

Portrait, Laser-cut vinyl and computer print on aluminium composite sheet, painted custom-wood frame

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2008

Lyndall Hobbs and Marilyn at the Come as your favourite blonde party, Blitz Club, London, 1979 Robert Rosen

Shiny, happy people

Magazine article by Glynis Jones, 2022

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

Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), 1965

Clif Peir

Portrait, oil on board

Gift of Richard Brian Close, Githabul people, Woodenbong 2000. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Portrait of Caroline Chisholm, c. 1851

Purchased 2001

National Portrait Gallery unveils twenty new portrait commissions to celebrate twenty years

18 October 2018

Magazine article by Gael Newton, 2003

The National Portrait Gallery has unveiled twenty new portrait commissions of Australian leaders and individualists as part of its twentieth birthday celebrations in a new exhibition, 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

Vintage Max

Gael Newton delves into the life and art of renowned Australian photographer, Max Dupain.

Lady Jane Grey, c.1590-1600 (also known as The ‘Streatham’ portrait) Artist unknown

The Royal she

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2019

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

Marcia Hines, c. 1981

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

Adrian Brown

Portrait, carte de visite photograph on card

An interview with the photographer.

William Robertson and Martha Mary Robertson

William Robertson and Martha Mary Robertson, 1863

William Edward Kilburn

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Face of South Sudan, 2012 by Melanie Faith Dove

NPPP 2013 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

Joanna Gilmour, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2013 Prize.

Portrait of Thea Proctor, 1905 by George Lambert

The real Thea

Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.

Surface tension

Magazine article by Christine Clark, 2006

Joanna Gilmour on the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2013.

Portraits and other stories

As the National Portrait Gallery opens its exhibition of portrait and figurative work by veteran photographer Sam Haskins, the artist reflects on the highlights of his fifty-year career so far.

Talking heads

In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.

Louise Whelan

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2002

I met Kaloti Parmjit the day I took the photo. I first visited the Sikh temple in the suburb of Glenwood to take photos as part of a social documentary project I'm undertaking for the State Library of NSW.

On commission

Former NPG Director Andrew Sayers discusses the art of commissioning portraits.

Rhonda Sharpe

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

Luritja woman Rhonda Sharpe was born in 1977 in Alice Springs and is an artist working out of Yarrenyty Arltere Artists, in the Larapinta Valley Town Camp.

2 portraits in the collection

Flash mob

Sarah Engledow trains her exacting lens on the nine photographs from 20/20.

Self-portrait in black jumper, 2017 Graeme Drendel

Be frank

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2020

Close encounters are the genesis for Graeme Drendel’s enticing portraiture.

Hyperversity

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2003

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the larger-than-life Australian performance artist, Leigh Bowery.

Sir William Dargie CBE

Sir William Dargie, painter and eight times winner of the Archibald Prize for portraiture, died in Melbourne on July 26, 2003, aged 91.

René Primevère Lesson

Portrait, pencil, chalk and gouache on paper

René Primevère Lesson (1794–1849), French surgeon, naturalist, ornithologist, and herpetologist, entered the Naval Medical School in Rochefort at the age of sixteen.

1 portrait in the collection

Jessie Robertson, c. 1849

Thomas Bock

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC 2013

Mr Movies - Bill Collins OAM, 2009

Evert Ploeg

Portrait, oil on linen

Gift of Joan Collins and the Todd-Wilson family in memory of Bill Collins 2019. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

The Fairfax Gift

Magazine article by John Zubrzycki, 2016

This article examines the portraits gifted to the National Portrait Gallery by Fairfax Holdings in 2003.

Murray frees himself from straightjacket in public, 1928 by Sam Hood

Risky business

John Zubrzycki lauds the characters of the Australian escapology trade.

New app gets kids excited about portraits at the National Portrait Gallery

29 May 2018

The National Portrait Gallery has officially launched a new digital interactive Gallery experience called Headhunt!, the first app of its kind being used in museums and galleries. Headhunt! is a tablet-based app for visitors aged 7-15 that encourages children to take the lead and independently explore the Gallery.

Queen Elizabeth II

Magazine article by Annette Twyman, 2021

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926–2022) was the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, who subsequently became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

4 portraits in the collection

Portrait of Elizabeth Gould with a raptor, possibly a red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus), painted in her lifetime Artist unknown

Birds of a feather

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

Charles Blondin, 1874

Timothy Noble

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Arnold Shore

Arnold Shore, a lifelong inhabitant of Melbourne, was apprenticed to a stained glass and leadlight company called Brooks, Robinson soon after leaving school at the age of twelve.

2 portraits in the collection

William Henry Harvey

William Henry Harvey (1811-1866), botanist, formed a boyhood passion for natural history which was encouraged at Ballitore School, County Kildare.

1 portrait in the collection

More about the National Photographic Portrait Prize

Magazine article by Diana Warnes, 2007

Comments from our judges and information about entering the 2017 Prize.

Oz and beyond

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

Situated self-portraits

Magazine article by Katherine Russell, 2006

The theme of the seventh annual survey of secondary school student portraiture, Headspace, was Me and My Place.

Pets of all types take over the National Portrait Gallery

3 November 2016

Dalton's Royal Photographic Gallery

It is not every day that a national gallery turns its walls over to the animal companions that bring unconditional love and joy to their owners but this summer we have opened the doors to 15 contemporary artists with very different ways of depicting our furry, feathered and scaled pets.

Henry Squires, c. 1861

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite, hand coloured on card

Purchased 2009

Heather Corrigan

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2015

The lovely faces in my photograph are that of my best friends. Some I have only known for a couple of months, others for most of my life. For me, recreating a family portrait with individuals I love was supremely important. I was reconstructing a photo of people I cherish with people I adore.

A.I.

Christopher Chapman ponders our digital identity and selfhood.

Harry Kewell, 2011

Julian Kingma

Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2023–25

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Definitions

Access is about creating the necessary conditions for all individuals and organisations to use services, facilities, programs and employment opportunities.

William St. Leonards Robertson, c. 1869

Johnstone O'Shannessy & Co

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Malcolm Robertson in memory of William Thomas Robertson 2018
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Virginia Woolf, 1902 George Charles Beresford

Love my way

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2022

Inga Walton delves into the bohemian group of artists and writers who used each other as muses and transformed British culture.

Don Walker

Don Walker (b. 1951) is considered one of Australia's best songwriters.

1 portrait in the collection

Adrian Rawlins

Adrian Rawlins (1939-2001), poet, performer and promoter, grew up in a Jewish household in Caulfield and St Kilda.

1 portrait in the collection

Interiors

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2012

Christopher Chapman previews the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009.

Beguiling impressions

Sarah Engledow is seduced by the portraits and the connections between the artists and their subjects in the exhibition Impressions: Painting light and life.

Seduce, Amuse, Entertain

NPPP 2007 exhibition essay

Michael Desmond, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2007 Prize.

Ada E. Evans

Ada Emily Evans (1872–1947) was the first Australian woman to attain a law degree and the first woman admitted to the Bar in New South Wales.

1 portrait in the collection

Tim Burstall

Tim Burstall (1927-2004) set up Eltham Films in the early 1950s, when the local film industry was moribund.

2 portraits in the collection

Liu Wei

Born 1965 in Beijing. Lives and works in Beijing.

Graeme Drendel

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2007

I like talking about Drendel’s pictures as if they expressed dreams of my own.

Seduce Amuse Entertain

Michael Desmond profiles a handful of the entrants in first National Photographic Portrait Prize and notes emerging themes and categories.

Australian Love Stories

4 January 2021

Archived media releases 2021

A major new exhibition celebrating love in all its guises. Opening 20 March 2021.

Myles Nelson

It was definitely a candid encounter as was the expression on the face. It was constructed insofar as the image was deliberately taken from a distance so as to minimize intrusion and to magnify the effect of the image.

Fits of delicacy and despair

Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.

Seeing stars

Magazine article by Katherine Russell, 2006

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

Inspiration + Realisation: John Singer Sargent

Katherine Russell examines the art of Australian artist Paul Newton, referencing the portraiture of John Singer Sargent.

Janet Tavener

Magazine article by Stella Ramage, 2016

Mikala is the eldest of my three daughters. I have photographed her on many an occasion. Needless to say we are both extremely at home with the practice.

Some women you may not know

Alison Alder

‘Everybody’s lives are built by so many influences, and for me, it is writers, artists and activists who have influenced how I think about the world.’

Missionary positions

Stella Ramage on Father McHardy’s Bougainville portraiture.

Apollo's breath

Christopher Chapman delights in the intimacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's photography

Darren McDonald

Magazine article by Rebecca Ray, 2023

The wild balancing act of McDonald’s home décor (is that there as a joke? where do I actually sit down? is this ironic or what? what a lovely photo of Darren and Robin in Europe!) is reflected in his own personality.

Aretha Brown

In conversation

Gumbaynggirr artist Aretha Brown talks street art, collaboration and ghost stories with First Nations Curator and Meriam woman, Rebecca Ray.

The silent partner

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.

Sunset in the drawing room at Chesney Wold by Hablot Knight Brown

Portraiture in a Bleak House

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

It may seem an odd thing to do at one’s leisure on a beautiful tropical island, but I spent much of my midwinter break a few weeks ago re-reading Bleak House.

Capturing the Mouse

Nancy Wake AC (b. 1912), one of the most decorated women of World War 2, earned the name the 'White Mouse' for her maddening ability to evade the Gestapo.

Top shot that

Magazine article by Gideon Haigh, 2009

Gideon Haigh discusses portraits of Australian cricketers from the early 20th century

Martin Sharp, 1986

Garry Shead

Portrait, pokerwork on spotted gum

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Joan Kerr, 2004

Peter Drewett

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of James Semple Kerr 2004

Katherine Bennett

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2019

The lady in the centre of this photograph is my partner's Granny. So we are almost directly related, and here, as with all photographic work. I am in a state of exchange though I think only directly, with one of the women!

Helen Blaxland judging flower arrangements, c. 1940s photographer unknown

Petal to the mettle

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

Everybody's heard about the bird

Two professionals; Australian surfer Layne Beachley and photographer Petrina Hicks, combine their strengths to achieve a remarkable portrait.

Patrick Corrigan AM

Magazine article by Barry York, 2018

Patrick Corrigan AM (b. 1932), businessman, art collector and arts patron, was born in Hanghow (Hankou) in China.

3 portraits in the collection

Star signs

Barry York charts the course from childhood request to autographed celebrity portrait anthology.

Suave

Archived media releases 2013

Charles Haddon Chambers the Australian-born playboy playwright settled permanently in London in 1880 but never lost his Australian stance when satirising the English.

Paul Kelly and The Portraits media information

18 June 2013

Paul Kelly & The Portraits presents a multifaceted image of the performer over the course of his career.

Me Myself I

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2001

Andrew Sayers explores the self-portraits created by Australian artist Sidney Nolan.

The spirit of the gift

Former NPG Director, Andrew Sayers celebrates the support given to the Gallery by Gordon and Marilyn Darling.

C.H.T. Costantini

Charles Henry Theodore Costantini (also Constantine, Constantini and Costantine) was a Paris-born surgeon of Italian descent who was twice transported to the Australian colonies in the 1820s.

1 portrait in the collection

Nikki Toole

An interview with the photographer.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

8 March 2018

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

Images for media use will be available from 8 March 2018.

In good company

Jean Appleton’s 1965 self portrait makes a fine addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s collection writes Joanna Gilmour.

Practising the Minuet (Miss Hilda Spong)

An actress and her fans

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2015

Dr. Sarah Engledow discovers the amazing life of Ms. Hilda Spong, little remembered star of the stage, who was captured in a portrait by Tom Roberts.

Woman with Fair Hair and Pink Cardigan, 1949 by John Perceval.

The family scene

Magazine article, 2016

Traudi Allen discovers sensitivity, humour and fine draughtsmanship in the portraiture of John Perceval.

Stigma stigmata

Angus Trumble provides poignant context for Aña Wojak’s portrait of Tony Carden.

Untitled, Conductors, Tramways series, 1990 © Matt Nettheim

Back track

Magazine article by Diana Warnes, 2016

Penelope Grist finds photographer Matt Nettheim re-visiting a formative and fulfilling career tram stop.

Anatomist's eye

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

Sir Charles Nicholson

Sir Charles Nicholson (1808-1903), statesman, landowner, businessman, connoisseur, scholar and physician, was born illegitimately into unpropitious circumstances in Yorkshire.

2 portraits in the collection

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), army officer and hero, was the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1828 to 1830.

1 portrait in the collection

A papal pet encounter

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2004

In honour of the launch of the Popular Pet Show, Angus recalls a diplomatic incident with an over-excited golden retriever.

Thousand mile stare

John Elliott talks about his photographic portrait practice, including his iconic image of Slim Dusty arm-in-arm with Dame Edna Everage.

Neilma B. Gantner

Neilma Baillieu Gantner (1922–2015), writer and philanthropist, was the second child of Melbourne retailer Sidney Myer and his wife Merlyn (née Baillieu).

1 portrait in the collection

What the tree saw: David Foster, 2018

by Jacqui Stockdale

Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018

20/20 launch speech

Magazine article by Tim Storrier, 2013

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

Observation point

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

Richard Divall OBE in the church mantle of the Order of Malta

Richard Divall AO OBE

Frà Professor Richard Divall AO OBE (1945–2017), conductor, composer and scholar, grew up in Manly and was educated at Manly Boys’ High School.

1 portrait in the collection

Is the truth of portraiture vested exclusively in likeness?

Archived media releases 2021

Curator Michael Desmond introduces the exhibition Truth and Likeness, an investigation of the importance of likeness to portraiture.

Harriet Schwarzrock: spaces between movement and stillness

10 February 2021

To celebrate the new exhibition Australian Love Stories, renowned Australian glass artist Harriet Schwarzrock has been commissioned to make a large-scale installation reflecting on the role the heart plays as our emotional centre.

John Flaus

John Flaus (b. 1934) is an Australian broadcaster, actor, script editor and lecturer, known for Mary and Max (2009), Trust Frank (2020) and Tracks (2013).

1 portrait in the collection

Cocky McGrath

Archived media releases 2015

The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo

L. Gordon Darling AC CMG

31 August 2015

The Chairman, Board, Director and all the Staff of the National Portrait Gallery mourn the loss of our Founding Patron, who died peacefully in Melbourne this morning. He was 94.

Intense identity

Magazine article by Amanda Rowell, 2015

Dr Chistopher Chapman discusses the portrait of Australian author Christos Tsiolkas taken by John Tsiavis.

Sophisticated and glamorous

Michael Riley’s early portraits by Amanda Rowell.

Nusra Latif Qureshi

by Hammad Nasar

Magazine article by Shaun Gladwell, 2011

Nusra Latif Qureshi was born in Pakistan in 1973 and originally trained in the traditional art of Mughal miniature (musaviri) paintings.

Observation point

Australian artist Shaun Gladwell discusses his portraits of champion athletes.

Glamour vs grunge

Christopher Chapman examines the battle of glamour vs. grunge which played out in the fashion and advertising of the 1990s.

The Saint and the merchant

Emanuel Solomon gave shelter to the Sisters of St Joseph upon the excommunication of St Mary MacKillop.

Storied portrait

Emily Casey takes in Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait, Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe.

Moving pictures

The exhibition California Video at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles demonstrated how video artists expand the boundaries of portraiture.

Portrait Donors

Listed by year

Honour board

Fang Lijun

Magazine article by Johanna McMahon, 2019

Born 1963, Handan, Hebei Province China. Lives and works in Beijing.

Dupain detective

Johanna McMahon revels in history and mystery in pursuit of a suite of unknown portrait subjects.

The story of us

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2022

Gallery directors Karen Quinlan and Tony Ellwood talk to Penelope Grist about the NPG and NGV collaborative exhibition, Who Are You: Australian Portraiture.

I'm not there

Christopher Chapman looks at some contemporary portraits that explore the construction of identity.

Monument to Mrs. Moore St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool, Sydney

Waterloo and Mrs. Moore

Beyond the centenary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, a number of other notable anniversaries converge this year. Waterloo deserves a little focussed consideration, for in the decades following 1815 numerous Waterloo and Peninsular War veterans came to Australia.

Reflections

All that fall: Sacrifice, life and loss in the First World War exhibition co-curators Dr Anne Sanders and Dr Christopher Chapman reflect on the evolution of the Gallery’s Anzac Centenary exhibition.

Yu Hong

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2011

Born 1966 in Beijing, China. Lives and works in Beijing.

How to be a boy

Christopher Chapman profiles Chris Lilley, actor and creator of Angry Boys.

Tim Fairfax, 2018

by Russell Shakespeare

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2013

Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018

Pop poet

Dr Anne Sanders previews the works in the new focus exhibition Paul Kelly and The Portraits.

Figurative foundation

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and art of the Australian artist Janet Dawson.

More cash than dash

Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.

Nicholas Paspaley Jnr, 2018

by Andrew Bonneau

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2004

Commissioned with funds provided by Ross Adler AC 2018

Before Too Long

The story behind the creation of the portrait of singer-songwriter Paul Kelly by the artist Jon Campbell.

Melanie Faith Dove

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2020

I had been watching Agnes with intrigue, her face and profile were so mesmerizing. On our final day together I pulled her aside and convinced her that she had such an amazing face that I needed to get a photograph for myself. It was very spontaneous in that I decided quickly how it would best look and shot it in only two frames.

Venetia, Lady Digby, circa 1633-1634 by Sir Anthony van Dyck

Love in the extreme

Joanna Gilmour reveals love’s more intense manifestations in the tale of Lord Kenelm and Venetia Digby.

Mia Wasikowska as Robyn Davidson at Hamelin Pool, 2013 by Matt Nettheim

Hump days

Magazine article by Jessica Bolton, 2017

Jessica Bolton navigates the parallel tracks documenting Robyn Davidson’s astonishing journey.

Obey

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Michael Desmond investigates the street art of Shepard Fairey, who was catapulted to fame during the 2008 presidential election with his resonant image of Barack Obama.

Director John Duigan and actor Judy Davis on the set of ‘Winter of our Dreams’, Sydney, 1981 by Robert McFarlane

Natural born stiller

Penelope Grist speaks to Robert McFarlane about shooting for the stars.

The line of fire

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2005

Michelle Fracaro examines the life of World War II nurse Margaret Anderson, whose portrait by Napier Waller is in the NPG collection.

Krystal Seigerman

The photograph was a brief, candid moment, which unfolded into a portrait. Peter and I were in Silverton, NSW, chatting as our students explored the town. The weak afternoon light suddenly became dramatic and defined, so I asked Peter if I could take his portrait.

The numbers man

Dr. Sarah Engledow tells the story of Australia's first Federal statistician, Sir George Knibbs.

Fred Hilmer, 2018

by Evert Ploeg

Magazine article by Emeritus Professor Jaynie Anderson AM, 2015

Commissioned with funds provided by Dr Helen Nugent AO 2018

Sitter still

Jaynie Anderson reflects on her experience as sitter for Reshid Bey’s 1962 portrait.

Alternative virtue

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.

Jessica Mauboy, 2018

by David Rosetzky

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2016

Commissioned with funds provided by Sony Music Entertainment Australia 2018

Mrs NR Mackintosh (Anne) by Ruth Hollick

Natural, artistic and unselfconscious

Angus Trumble gazes at the once bright star of photographer Ruth Hollick.

Nadiah Bamadhaj

by Beverly Yong

Born in Malaysia in 1968, to a Malaysian Muslim father and a New Zealander mother of Scottish descent Nadiah Bamadhaj studied Fine Arts in New Zealand, and is currently working on a PhD from Curtin University, Western Australia.

The boy, the bed and the gun

The Illustrated London News after Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant

Christopher Chapman contemplates the provocative performance art of Chris Burden.

Queen Victoria, 1901

Portrait, photogravure on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Pat and Richard Larter, Luddenham, 1970s

Pin-ups

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

Christopher Chapman describes the art and life of Australian artist Richard Larter.

Uncommon Australians

Magazine article by Katherine Russell, 2007

Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.

Be bold

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.

Stevie

Magazine article by Gregory McBean, 2005

Gregory McBean writes about photographing recent ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, singer Stevie Wright.

Crikey!

Robin Sellick captured a rare moment of quietude from the late conservation star Steve Irwin.

Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan (b. 1961) was born in Longford in northern Tasmania, the second youngest of the six children of Archie Flanagan, a primary school principal, and his wife Helen.

1 portrait in the collection

Feel the music

Archived media releases 2019

Dr Christopher Chapman discusses the portrait of Australian composer Paul Grabowsky by photographer Martin Philbey.

Greta In Her Kitchen, 36 weeks, 2018 by Alana Holmberg

Winner announced for National Photographic Portrait Prize 2019

22 February 2019

From an outstanding field of more than 3,000 entries, culminating in a shortlist of 39 exceptional finalists, the Winner and Highly Commended entries for this year’s National Photographic Portrait Prize have been named.

The Art Lovers - Megan, 2013 by Gary Grealy

Everybody, look serious

NPPP 2014 exhibition essay

Dr Sarah Engledow, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2014 Prize.

History

About us

How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be

Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet

Louis-Claude Desaulses de Freycinet (1779–1842), hydrographer and cartographer, sailed with Nicolas Baudin on the Expédition aux terres australes, a journey of discovery, commissioned by Napoléon, to the unknown southern coast of New Holland.

1 portrait in the collection

Self-nature is subtle and mysterious - Tree Woman / Woman Tree

Nell

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2005

Born in Maitland, New South Wales in 1975, Nell is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture, video and performance.

3 portraits in the collection

Now Listen...

Artist Tessa Jones recalls creating her portrait of Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock singer and music producer, Ross Wilson.

Miles from nowhere, 2008 (printed 2014) from the Games of consequence series 2008 Polixeni Papapetrou

Mother’s muse

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2020

Inga Walton traces the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, revealed in the NGV’s summer retrospective.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018 winner announced

23 March 2018

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2013

Finalists have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of the Winner and Highly Commended for the National Photographic Portrait Prize since December. It is our pleasure to announce the Winner for 2018 is Lee Grant for her portrait titled Charlie and Highly Commended has been awarded to Filomena Rizzo for her portrait titled My Olivia.

All dressed up

Jane Raffan asks do clothes make the portrait, and can the same work with a new title fetch a better price?

Studio portrait of servicewoman Lance Corporal Kathleen Jean Mary (Kath) Walker, c.1942

Past present

Magazine article by Krysia Kitch, 2016

Krysia Kitch celebrates Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

The 1950s to the present day

Mo and beard timeline

Certain European leaders (needless to name) had the effect of making certain styles of facial hair decidedly undesirable in the years immediately after World War 2.

Private virtues public lives

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2017

Family affections are preserved in a fine selection of intimate portraits.

Costantini's convictions

Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.

Self-portrait in white jacket , 1901-02 Hugh Ramsay

Wunderkind lost

Magazine article by Inga Walton, 2021

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

The hands have it

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2016

Angus Trumble treats the gallery’s collection with a dab hand.

Une Femme Amoureuse, Self portrait as Mireille Mathieu, 2022 Yvette Coppersmith

You, looking at me

Magazine article by Elspeth Pitt, 2022

Elspeth Pitt chats with Archibald Prize-winning artist Yvette Coppersmith about performance, coincidences and the intersection of art and life.

National Portrait Gallery and Access2Arts staff presenting on audio description at the Australian Museums and Galleries Association National Conference

Our achievements to date

Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2023–25

During the period 2018–20, the Gallery implemented our first Access Action Plan.

The bright-eyed Mariner

A new colonial portrait brings a zealous captain near.

My father-in-law watering his garden, 1986 by Davida Allen

Lovingly observed

Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.

Painter John Brack with Professor Alex Mitchell and Sir Garfield Barwick, c. 1977

Jozef Vissel

Magazine article by Karen Vickery, 2015

Gift of the Jozef Vissel 2015

The portrait writ large

Karen Vickery on Chang the Chinese giant in Australia.

Nannultera, a young cricketer of the Natives' Training Institution, Poonindie , 1854 John Michael Crossland

The catechist and the cricketer

Magazine article by Stephen Valambras Graham, 2021

Stephen Valambras Graham traverses the intriguing socio-political terrain behind two iconic First Nations portraits of the 1850s.

Untitled #21/09 (after Ricci, 1700; featuring Matthew Mitcham)

Getting bare

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2015

How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.

Alison Rehfisch

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2007

Alison Baily Rehfisch (1900–1975) was born Alison Green in Woollahra, New South Wales, to parents who 'were very interested in painting – in all the arts: music, literature, everything'.

2 portraits in the collection

Head, hand, heart

An extensive selection of portraits by John Brack were on display at the National Portrait Gallery in late 2007.

Sharon Zwi

Archived media releases 2020

We were in Gaza shooting a documentary and we had heard about the orphanages and wanted to visit and document some of the children who had lost parents during the wars in Gaza.

Announcing.... In their own words

24 November 2020

Inspiring Australians tell their own stories in a unique new gallery audio tour, developed in collaboration with the National Library of Australia.

Omai, Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, 1775-76

First encounters

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

Representations of the inhabitants of the new world expose the complexities of the colonisers' intentions.

Albert Jonas and John Xiniwe of The African Choir, 1891 London Stereoscopic Co.

Back in black

Magazine article by Krysia Kitch, 2017

Krysia Kitch reviews black chronicles at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Happy New Year

This year (in March) we will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery. In the life of institutions, twenty years is not a long time.

Blue Collar Icon

Dr Sarah Engledow delves into the life of union leader Pat Mackie who is depicted in a portrait by Nancy Borlase AM.

William Shakespeare, c. 1600-1610 associated with John Taylor

Selected images

Take a peek at a selection of the portraits you can see in the exhibition.

Rupert Bunny

Magazine article by Kylie Scroope, 2011

Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny (1864–1947) was one of the most celebrated Australian expatriate artists of his generation, achieving a degree of success in Paris in the 1890s and early 1900s that was unmatched by his peers.

3 portraits in the collection

Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia by H.R.H. The Duke of Cornwall and York, May 9, 1901, 1903 by Tom Roberts

Empire records

Celebrates the centenary of the first national art collection, the Historic Memorials Collection, housed at Australia's Parliament House.

Wylie

Wylie (c. 1824–unknown) is thought to have been born near King George’s Sound in south-west Western Australia, which would make him a Noongar man.

1 portrait in the collection

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.

The play’s the thing

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

Penelope Grist charts an immersive path through Stuart Spence’s photography.

Regarding Henrys

Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.

Ready , set... shoot

Magazine article by Christine Clark, 2006

The exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus offers various interpretations of sporting men and women by five Australian photographers.

The Good Doctor

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2023

Dr Sarah Engledow describes the achievements of internationally renowned burns and trauma surgeon Professor Fiona Wood.

Illuminating history

Joanna Gilmour reflects on 25 years of collecting at the National Portrait Gallery.

Portrait of Kym Bonython/Portrait of Mr Bonython's speedway cap

Somewhere to hang your cap

Magazine article by Beatrice Thompson, 2007

A pair of portraits by John Brack; Portrait of Kym Bonython and Portrait of Mr Bonython's speedway cap combine to create a quirky depiction of their subject.

Off the wall

Magazine article by John Witzig, 2008

Photographer and surf mag editor John Witzig tells the stories behind his iconic surf images.

Of human clay

Archived media releases 2020

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

The National Portrait Prizes

29 January 2020

The National Portrait Gallery today announced finalists for the inaugural Darling Portrait Prize, a national new $75,000 prize for Australian portrait painting, and released selected images from the final prize pool for the popular National Photography Portrait Prize.

Splendid, many-splendoured

Magazine article by Sandra Bruce, 2021

Sandra Bruce gazes on love and the portrait through Australian Love Stories’ multi-faceted prism.

In the round

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2009

Andrew Sayers outlines the highlights of the National Portrait Gallery's display of portrait sculpture.

Mary (or Diana) Croker, mat woman, Colchester, 1823 by John Dempsey

Unknown drawer

Magazine article by Dr David Hansen, 2017

Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.

Some prime ministers

Archived media releases 2020

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

In the mirror: self portrait with Joy Hester

Spring exhibition program

18 August 2020

The following on-line and physical exhibitions are planned to open at the National Portrait Gallery in coming months. For those who can’t travel at present, selected works from all exhibitions will be included online

Hide/Seek

Magazine article by David Ward, 2010

David Ward writes about the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture on display at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington.

The painter and the princess

Michael Desmond interviews Ralph Heimans about his portrait of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.

Portrait of Lady Eyre Williams (Jessie Gibbon)

Chance encounter

Magazine article by Christine Clark, 2005

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of one of Melbourne's early socialites, Jessie Eyre Williams.

Glossy too

The Glossy 2 exhibition highlights the integral role magazine photography plays in illustrating and shaping our contemporary culture.

Emblems of beauty

Magazine article by Keith Christiansen, 2012

Keith Christiansen introduces the exhibition The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Group photograph taken at the coronation of King George VI including Queen Elizabeth II, Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Queen Mother, 12 May 1937 by Hay Wrightson

Poise and Carats

I keep going back to Cartier: The Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia next door, and, within the exhibition, to Princess Marie Louise’s diamond, pearl and sapphire Indian tiara (1923), surely one of the most superb head ornaments ever conceived.

Friends and Acquaintances

Magazine article by Alistair McGhie, 2009

Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.

Winning in technicolor

Alistair McGhie writes about the portraits of three of Australia's top professional cyclists: Cadel Evans, Stuart O'Grady and Robbie McEwen painted by Matthys Gerber.

Untitled (girl on chair with red shoes) by Violet Frisby

Finding Mrs Frisby

Magazine article by Robyn Sweaney, 2016

Robyn Sweaney's quiet Violet obsession.

Fine and dandy

NPPP 2017 exhibition essay

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.

Trevor Jamieson, 2016 by Brett Canet-Gibson

The more things change...

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

The National Photographic Portrait Prize turns ten

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2010

It is now a little more than 178 years since the French Academy of Sciences was made aware of the invention of the daguerreotype process.

The considered life

Andrew Sayers asks whether a portrait can truly be the examination of a life.

I walk the line

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

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

Inside outside

Michael Desmond explores the portraiture of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Face House – Kyoto, Japan Architect: Kazumasa Yamashita

Alter ego

Magazine article by Tom Fryer, 2021

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

Modern Australian Women

Magazine article by Gillian Raymond, 2005

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

Bushrangers, Victoria, Australia, 1852, 1887 by William Strutt

Strutt your stuff

Magazine article by Matthew Jones, 2016

Matthew Jones on the upshot of a St Kilda Road outrage.

Capturing Cook

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2003

In focussing on the importance of gifts in the building of the collection, prominence must be given to the most spectacular of the National Portrait Gallery's acquisitions; the portrait of Captain James Cook RN by John Webber R.A.

Diamond Doll

Magazine article by Karen Vickery, 2016

Karen Vickery delights in a thespian thread of the Australian yarn.

Earth to earth

Dr Sarah Engledow discusses the recent gift of works by David Campbell.

Giving and getting

The exhibition Portraits for Posterity celebrates gifts to the Gallery, of purchases made with donated funds, and testifies to the generosity and community spirit of Australians.

Inditchenous beestes of New Olland

Magazine article by Barrie Cassidy, 2019

A remarkable undated drawing by Edward Lear (1812–88) blends natural history and whimsy.

The Honourable Bob Hawke savouring a strawberry milkshake, 2017 by Harold David

The intellectual larrikin

Barrie Cassidy pays textured tribute to the inimitable Bob Hawke.

James Baldwin, writer, Harlem, New York 1945 by Richard Avedon

The Avedon effect

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2013

Dr Christopher Chapman explores how we can understand Richard Avedon's photographs.

Australian Princess

Magazine article by Katherine Russell, 2005

The full-length portrait of HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark by artist Jiawei Shen, has become a destination piece for visitors.

Jim Cobb at Chroma factory Mt Kuring-gai, NSW, 2017 by Mark Mohell

The alchemist’s profile

Magazine article by John Zubrzycki, 2017

John Zubrzycki meets Australian paint pioneer Jim Cobb.

Grateful admiration and brotherly love

In the earliest stages of the Great War, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton was turned into a military hospital, and arrangements made there to accommodate the different dietary and other requirements of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim patients.

Worth her salt

Jerrold Nathan's portrait of Jessie Street shows the elegant side of a many-faceted lady.

Where the wild things are

Magazine article by Sven Knudsen, 2018

Michael Desmond explores the complex portrait of Dr Bob Brown by Harold 'The Kangaroo' Thornton.

Royal Solomon Islands Police Force recruits, Maranatha Hall, Honiara by Sean Davey

The art of peace

Sean Davey captures the portrait of a nation renewed.

Shadows of light

Magazine article by Mark Haworth-Booth, 2002

Mark Haworth-Booth explains why Bill Brandt is one of the most important British photographers of the Twentieth Century.

Fiona McMonagle

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2017

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.

Nocturnal animals

Joanna Gilmour explores the enticing urban shadows cast by artists Martin Lewis and Edward Hopper.

Two pair

Magazine article by Dr Jacqui Strecker, 2008

Stuttgart's Art Museum is showing Otto Dix portraits alongside artists from Lucas Cranach to Andy Warhol.

Yellow portrait (portrait of Alex Jelinek)

Fugue in Yellow

Magazine article by Roger Benjamin, 2015

Roger Benjamin explores the intriguing union of Lina Bryans and Alex Jelinek.

Asiel Timor Dei, ca. 1728 by a master of Calamarca

The Viceroyalty of New Spain

Magazine article by Gael Newton, 2017

European painters always enjoyed a good deal of latitude in the representation of angels, those asexual, bodiless, celestial regiments of God, so long as they were young and beautiful.

In and out of focus

Gael Newton looks at Australian photography, film and the sixties through the novel lens of Mark Strizic.

The art of Inner Worlds

Lecture, 7 May 2011

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

NPPP 2016 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2017

Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.

Progressive pictures

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

The inner voice

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2011

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

Cormac + Callum Kenne, My Children, Sydney, Australia, 2009

Citizen Kenne

Magazine article by April Thompson, 2013

April Thompson explores an exhibition of Ingvar Kenne’s global portrait project.

Coming into being

NPPP 2018 exhibition essay

Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2018 Prize.

Christmas Island

Magazine article by Malcolm Robertson, 2011

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.

Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly), 1885-86

Brothers on farms

Malcolm Robertson tells the family history of one of Australia's earliest patrons of the arts, his Scottish born great great great grandfather, William Robertson.

Bloodlines

Magazine article by Michelle Fracaro, 2004

Michelle Fracaro describes Lionel Lindsay's woodcut The Jester (self-portrait).

All in the Family

Magazine article by Barbara Blackman AO, 2003

In 2000, Barbara Blackman donated a portrait of her close friends - poet Judith Wright, her husband Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith - painted by Charles Blackman.

Untitled #88 (Captain Brad Kilpatrick and Kylie Minogue, Balibo, East Timor, 20 December 1999)

For the boys

Magazine article by Alistair McGhie, 2011

The photographs from Matthew Sleeth's tour of duty series look more like advertisements than images of war.

Family collective

Magazine article by Beatrice Gralton, 2013

Beatrice Gralton looks at a larger than life portrait by Chinese artist Song Dong.

Heartfelt

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2005

The portrait of Janet and Horace Keats with the spirit of the poet Christopher Brennan is brought to life by artist Dora Toovey.

M H Wednesday 11.15am from the series Self-harm, 2004

Big it up

Former National Portrait Gallery Curator Magda Keaney was a member of the selection panel of the Schwepes Photographic Portrait Prize 2004 at the National Portrait Gallery London.

Being Cate

A moving portrait of Cate Blanchett unfolds as an inspired pairing of medium and subject.

Indexing, the art of

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2019

The first index I created was for my first book, and, to my astonishment, that was almost twenty-five years ago.

Little women

Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.

Alexander Pearce
executed for murder
July 19th 1824

Public hanging

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2008

As a convict Thomas Bock was required to sketch executed murders for science; as a free man, fashionable society portraits.

Kylie

Magazine article by Margot Anderson, 2005

The Kylie exhibition celebrated the significant achievements of one of Australia's most internationally recognisable faces and gave the general public a rare glimpse into her glamorous life.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885-86 by
John Singer Sargent

A feast of friends

Magazine article by Richard Ormond, 2015

John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.

Self-portrait with bowler hat, 1885–6 by Paul Cézanne

Hail Cézanne

Magazine article by John Elderfield, 2017

John Elderfield lauds the portraiture of Paul Cézanne, the artist described by both Matisse and Picasso as ‘the father of us all’.

The news from Washington

Magazine article by Lauretta Morton, 2006

Australia's former Cultural Attache to the USA, Ron Ramsey, describes the mood at the opening week of the revitalised American National Portrait Gallery.

Home truths

Magazine article by Dr Frances Borzello, 2001

Despite once expressing a limited interest in the self portrait, the idea of it has figured strongly in much of Tracey Moffatt's work and has done so in some of her most distinctive and compelling images.

Personal Politics

Dr Frances Borzello, British art historian and author discusses the uniqueness of women's self-portraits.

Clay, water, fire

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2005

Ah Xian's porcelain portrait of paediatrician Dr. John Yu reflects Yu's heritage and interests.

Exhibition opening speech

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2007

Leo Schofield introduces the exhibition, Masters of fare: chefs, winemakers, providores.

The highest honour

Bringing eminent scientist Frank Fenner and artist Jude Rae together for the National Portrait Gallery commission was like matchmaking.

The Philosophy of Teapots and Ducks

Magazine article by Gillian Raymond, 2005

Cartoonist Michael Leunig's insights into the human condition and current affairs have become famous Australia-wide.

Big bouquet of Blackmans

Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.

Wicked but Virtuous

Faith Stellmaker shares pioneering artist and restaurateur Mirka Mora’s lasting legacy on Melbourne’s art, dining and culture.

An evening at Yarra Cottage, Port Stephens

Maria Caroline Brownrigg

At first glance, this small watercolour group portrait of her two sons and four daughters by Maria Caroline Brownrigg (d. 1880) may seem prosaic, even hesitant

Cultural kaleidoscope

Magazine article by Sandra Phillips, 2010

The complex connections between four creative Australians; Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Robert Helpmann and Peter Sculthorpe.

Exposed: Voyeurism Surveillance and the camera since 1870

The Tate/SFMOMA exhibition Exposed examined the role of photography in voyeurism and how it challenges ideas of privacy and propriety.

Painting writing

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2007

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

Mugshots

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2018

A toast to the acquisition of an unconventional new portrait of former Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce.

The artist and her family, c. 1854 by Martha Berkeley

Presence and absence

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

School portraits

Magazine article by Raimond Gaita, 2015

Inga Walton sheds light on a portraiture collection usually only seen by students and teachers at Melbourne University.

Have you forgotten yet? 2014 by Lee Grant

All that fall

Raimond Gaita comments on war and truth in the context of the First World War.

Living landscape

Magazine article by Gillian Raymond, 2016

Gillian Raymond ponders landscapes as self-portraiture in Michael Taylor’s intimate expressionism.

You are who?

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2022

Joanna Gilmour reflects on merging collections and challenging traditional assumptions around portraiture in WHO ARE YOU.

Portrait of Kang Sehwang, 1783 by Yi Myeonggi

The artist, the scholar and the gentleman

Magazine article by Kwon Hyeeun, 2019

Kwon Hyeeun introduces Korean portraits of Kang Sehwang, and five generations of the Kang family.

Sibly irresistible

Magazine article by Alexandra Roginski, 2019

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

Finest quality

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of Chinese-Australian businessman and philanthropist Quong Tart.

Technical terminology

Michael Desmond introduces some of the ideas behind the exhibition Present Tense: An imagined grammar of portraiture in the digital age.

S Teddy D

by Elly Kent

S Teddy D was born in Padang, Sumatra in 1970, and studied painting at the Institut Seni Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of Art) in Yogyakarta.

Queen Alexandra and Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia, Hvidore, circa 1908 by Mary Steen

The cost of living luxuriously

In 1904, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna of Russia purchased as a gift for her sister, Queen Alexandra, a fan composed of two-color gold, guilloché enamel, mother-of-pearl, blond tortoiseshell, gold sequins, silk, cabochon rubies, and rose diamonds from the House of Fabergé in Saint Petersburg.

Less than six degrees of separation

Lecture, 28 May 2011

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2019

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

A spectral sentience

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

Donated duo

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the gift of two striking paintings by the Australian artist Ken Done AM.

Noel McKenna

It’s a matter beyond dispute that in the entire history of Australian art, it’s Noel McKenna who’s painted the liveliest rendition of the head of a Chihuahua.

Beautiful bones

Sarah Engledow reflects on the shared life and writing of Dorothy Porter and Andrea Goldsmith.

Through blue eyes

Magazine article by Jane Kinsman, 2007

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.

Themes and variations (Annelies) A13, 1946

Listening to form

National Gallery of Australia curator Jane Kinsman discusses the portraiture of Henri Matisse.

Cachasunghia, Osage Warrior 1804–06 by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin

Political profiles

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

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.

The National Portrait Gallery's 20th birthday party

The National Portrait Gallery's 20th Anniversary

Magazine article by Phil Manning, 2017

Last month we marked the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery, the tenth of the opening of our signature building, and the fifth of our having become a statutory authority under Commonwealth legislation.

Thomas Mathewson (inset) and his studio on Queen Street, c. 1908 by Thomas Mathewson & Co

Northern exposure

Phil Manning celebrates a century of Brisbane photographic portraiture.

The more things change

National Photographic Portrait Prize curator, Sarah Engledow, finds reward in a difficult task and ultimately uncovers the essence of portraiture.

Nikhil Chopra

by Rattanamol Johal

Nikhil Chopra was born in 1974, in Calcutta. His first degree was in commerce, but in 1997 he took up fine art studies, eventually gaining a Masters in Fine Art from Ohio State University, United States.

Duty bound

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of colonial women Lady Ellen Stirling, Eliza Darling, Lady Eliza Arthur, Elizabeth Macquarie and Lady Jane Franklin.

In the galleries

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2017

Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.

Sarah Bernhardt, 1876 by Georges Clairin

Demimonde liaisons

Jane Raffan feasts on modernity’s entrée in the Belle Époque theatre of the demimonde.

Tiny Trace of a Colonial Giant

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

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.

Poison pen

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

Chet Baker, singer, New York City, January 16, 1986 by Richard Avedon

The existential lens

Magazine article by Stephen Zagala, 2013

Stephen Zagala discusses Richard Avedon’s work from an Australian perspective.

Mural of Italian/Roman actress Anna Magnani (1908–1973) with face mask, April 2020 Unknown artist

Of plague and portraits

Magazine article by Stephen Phillips, 2017

Corinna Cullen on the symbolic power of pandemic-related imagery over the ages.

Charlie's angles

Stephen Phillips talks to neurosurgeon Charlie Teo about his practice, perspectives and the anatomy of hope.

Christian Waller with Baldur, Undine and Siren at Fairy Hills, 1932 by Napier Waller

Enigma

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2015

Grace Carroll contemplates the curious case of Christian Waller.

Portrait of William Manning, c.1821 by Henry Bone

Of beef in burgundy

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2017

Angus Trumble reveals the complex technical mastery behind a striking recent acquisition, Henry Bone’s enamel portrait of William Manning.

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.

Each morning when I wake up I put on my mothers face, 2000

Paths to portraiture

Magazine article by Andrew Mayo, 2017

The life and art of Australian artist Jenny Sages is on display in the exhibition Paths to Portraiture.

Something old, something new

Andrew Mayo considers the changing face of modern wedding photography through the eyes of two of its finest exponents, Dan O’Day and Kelly Tunney.

Studio of the American & Australasian Photographic Co., Hill End, 1872

A rogue's calling card

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2008

Joanna Gilmour explores the stories behind the ninteenth-century carte de visites of bushrangers Frank Gardiner and Fred Lowry.

Amy Johnson wearing a woollen suit from the collection of flight clothes designed by Madame Schiaparelli for her solo flight from London to Cape Town, 1938 unknown photographer

Air wear

Magazine article by Esther Agostino, 2015

Aviation carried women’s roles in society to greater heights – fashion followed suit.

Ken Done

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2006

With a mum who was married to a tradie, you’d think it a fair chance that the baby Jesus would have grown up with a dog in the house.

Aussies all

The exhibition Aussies all features the ecclectic portrait photography of Rennie Ellis which captures Australian life during the 70s and 80s.

HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, 2006 Ralph Heimans AM

Dane reign

Magazine article by Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby, 2018

Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby bring eloquent context to Ralph Heimans’ portraits of Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

Thrown together

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2019

Shipmates for years, James Cook and Joseph Banks each kept a journal but neither man shed light on their relationship.

Penny Fowler AM, John Barrington AM, Heidi Victoria, Elizabeth Dibbs, Tom Mosby, Hayley Baillie, Hugo Michell, Elizabeth Pakchung, Valerie Tam

The Board

Governance & Board

The Board oversees the Gallery's strategic directions, objectives and governance.

Karl Robert, Count Nesselrode, 1818 by Sir Thomas Lawrence

The Lawrence lustre

Angus Trumble salutes the glorious portraiture of Sir Thomas Lawrence.

The stately lotus

Magazine article by Graeme Dix, 2016

I spent much of my summer holiday at D’Omah, on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. Lotus and waterlilies sprout in extraordinary profusion in artful ponds amid palms and deep scarlet ginger flowers.

Portrait of the Gallery

A design diary retrospective.

Rock Island Bend. Franklin River, South West Tasmania, 1979 by Peter Dombrovskis

Written in Water

Magazine article by Leslie Ureña, 2020

Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, photographers and conservationists, shared a love of photography and exploring wilderness areas of Tasmania.

Marian Anderson, contralto, New York, June 30, 1955 Richard Avedon

The right note

Marian Anderson’s glorious voice thrust her into stardom, and a more reluctant role as American civil rights pioneer.

Sandor Ferenczis 50th birthday dinner, Budapest, 1923

Less than six degrees of separation

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2011

Anne Sanders finds connections in Inner Worlds between Hungarian expatriates and the development of psychoanalysis in Australia.

Adam’s Prize Apples

Magazine article by Pamela Gerrish Nunn, 2016

Pamela Gerrish Nunn explores New Zealand’s premium award for portraiture.

An Australian story

Magazine article by The Hon. Dr Kevin Rudd, 2009

In his speech launching the new National Portrait Gallery building on 3 December 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set the Gallery in a national and historical context.

Peter Wilmoth, age 12, with copies of Our World 1974 Courtesy of the author

Paper, boy

Magazine article by Peter Wilmoth, 2016

Peter Wilmoth’s boy-journalist toolkit for antagonising an Australian political giant.

Take thy face hence

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2022

Joanna Gilmour travels through time to explore the National Portrait Gallery London’s masterpieces in Shakespeare to Winehouse.

Self Portrait with Stetson, 2011 by Darren McDonald

Painting them gently

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2015

Penny Grist on motivation, method and melancholy in the portraiture of Darren McDonald.

Giving a dam

True south #1

Ensconced and meditative in crisp Tasmania, Joanna Gilmour pays tribute to passionate green advocate and photographer Olegas Truchanas.

Inner Worlds and psychoanalysis

Lecture, 4 June 2011

Magazine article by Kate Fullagar, 2019

Inner Worlds evokes a broad view of psychology as a discipline. However, the specific interests of the practitioners whose portraits are included in the exhibition incorporate specialist areas including psychoanalysis.

Rethinking foundational histories

A focus on Indigenous-European relationships underpins Facing New Worlds. By Kate Fullagar.

Anne-Louise Lambert as Miranda Courtesy Picnic Productions

Rock star

Magazine article by Jennifer Coombes, 2018

Jennifer Coombes explores the lush images of Picnic at Hanging Rock, featuring Anne-Louise Lambert’s Miranda, the face of the film.

The importance of being bearded

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2012

Joanna Gilmour discovers that the beards of the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills were as epic as their expedition to traverse Australia from south to north.

A nose by any other name

Magazine article by Jane Kinsman, 2013

In the exhibition William Kentridge: Drawn from Africa at the National Gallery of Australia, the artist marries Gogol's Tsarist Russia, with that of Stalin and the damaging history of his homeland, South Africa.

Nan and Brian in bed, New York City 1983 © Nan Goldin

Love scars

Magazine article by Katrina Osborne, 2016

Katrina Osborne immerses herself in one of photography’s most fearless chronicles.

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.

The Window Seat, 1907 by Frances Hodgkins

Kiwi magpie

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2018

Penelope Grist finds inspiration in pioneering New Zealand artist, Frances Hodgkins.

Off grid

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2019

Aimee Board ventures within and beyond to consider two remarkable new Gallery acquisitions.

William Charles Wentworth -The Australian Patriot

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2015

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

Their brilliant careers

Magazine article by Jenny Gall, 2017

Jenny Gall delves into Starstruck to celebrate some of Australian cinema’s iconic women.

The Mutineers turning Lieut Bligh and part of the Officers and Crew adrift from His Majesty's Ship the Bounty

High & Bligh

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2008

Joanna Gilmour explores the 1790 portrait of William Bligh by Robert Dodd.

Forest Creek, Mount Alexander Diggings, 1852 by S. T. Gill

The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2016

Some years ago my colleague Andrea Wolk Rager and I spent several days in the darkened basement of a Rothschild Bank, inspecting every one of the nearly 700 autochromes created immediately before World War I by the youthful Lionel de Rothschild.

Dr Edward MacMahon, 1959 by William Dobell

Bill and Ted's excellent portrait.

Sarah Engledow on Messrs Dobell and MacMahon and the art of friendship.

A potpourri of portraits

Magazine article by Natalie Wilson, 2023

Archie 100 curator (and detective) Natalie Wilson’s nationwide search for Archibald portraits unearthed the fascinating stories behind some long-lost treasures.

Of ice and men

Magazine article by Stephen Phillips, 2016

Frank Hurley's celebrated images document the heroism and minutiae of Australian exploration in Antarctica.

Shop Talk

Angus and the arbiters talk (photo) shop for the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Yanyuwa young men, The Song Peoples Sessions CD Launch Rehearsals, Yanyuwa Country, 2012 Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis

Us being ourselves

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2022

Penelope Grist talks to photographer Benjamin Warlngundu Ellis about capturing moments, telling stories and keeping Culture strong.

The mind's eye

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2017

Christopher Chapman takes a trip through the doors of perception, arriving at the junction of surrealism and psychoanalysis.

Revd Dr Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, c.1795 by Sir Henry Raeburn

Great Scots

Magazine article by Diana O'Neil, 2017

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

Australia’s great internationalists

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Penelope Grist explores the United Nations stories in the Gallery’s collection.

Judy Davis and Sam Neill in ‘My Brilliant Career’, 1979 David Kynoch

Moving still

Magazine article by Anne O'Hehir, 2022

Anne O’Hehir on the seductive power of the film still to reflect and shape ourselves and our cultural landscape.

Drawing inspiration

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2017

Christopher Chapman absorbs the gentle touch of Don Bachardy’s portraiture.

See through me

Magazine article by Penelope Grist and Rebecca Ray, 2022

Penelope Grist and Rebecca Ray talk to the artists in Portrait23: Identity about transcending modes of portraiture.

Louis XVI giving final instructions to the Comte de La Perouse, c. 1785

Sea legged frogs

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

Joanna Gilmour describes some of the stories of the individuals and incidents that define French exploration of Australia and the Pacific.

Women make history

Magazine article by Jennifer Higgie, 2022

Jennifer Higgie uncovers the intriguing stories behind portraits of women by women in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

The Bare story

Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be

Staying home

True south #2

Joanna Gilmour brings a mindful Douglas Mawson’s perspective to bear on the concept of isolation.

Naked ambition

Joanna Gilmour dives into the life of Australian swimming legend Annette Kellerman.

In a good paddock

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2015

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.

First-Class Marksman, 1946 by Sidney Nolan

Money for Myth

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

Waterfall in Australia, c. 1830 by Augustus Earle

Augustus serendipitous

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825.

Flesh, figure and rock

Magazine article by Aimee Board, 2018

Aimee Board traces Judy Cassab’s path to the Australian outback, arriving at the junction of inspiration and abstraction.

Faces of war

Lecture, 14 May 2011

Lesley Harding, Curator, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne explores Albert Tucker’s experience of World War II, his interests in the intersection between psychology and creativity, and their influence on his portrait making.

Kristin Headlam

Basil grew into a speckled beauty – a long-legged leaper and an exceptionally vocal dog, with a great register of sounds, ascending in shock value from a whimper to a growl to a bark to a yelp that’s a violation of the ears.

Out of the shadows

Joanna Gilmour profiles the life and times of the shutter sisters May and Mina Moore.

Listomania

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.

Starry knight

Magazine article by David Friend, 2009

Aircraft designer, pilot and entrepreneur, Sir Lawrence Wackett rejoins friends and colleagues on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.

Mick Jagger, Madonna and Tony Curtis, 1997

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.

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.

Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and David R. L. Litchfield at Villa Favorita, Lugano, Switzerland, 1989 © Nicola Graydo

The Thyssen Art Macabre

Books seldom make me angry but this one did. At first, I was powerfully struck by the uncanny parallels that existed between the Mellons of Pittsburgh and the Thyssens of the Ruhr through the same period, essentially the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Nicholas Harding

Magazine article by Judith Pugh, 2005

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.

A sketch for some portraits

Judith Pugh reflects on Clifton Pugh's approach to portrait making.

Through thick and thin

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2017

Sarah Engledow likes the manifold mediums of Nicholas Harding’s portraiture.

Helena Rubinstein in a red brocade Balenciaga gown

Study in scarlet

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2018

Angus Trumble reflects on the force of nature that was Helena Rubinstein.

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.

Studio portrait of Lord Kitchener, British Secretary of State for War, 1914 by J Russell & Sons

All the way with K of K

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2016

Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.

Anangu landscape learning

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2018

Angus' initial perception of Uluru shifts, as he comes to see it as central to the entire order of Anangu life.

Material culture

The Rajah Quilt’s narrative promptings are as intriguing as the textile is intricate.

Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits

Exhibition essay

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

A non-material and non-physical portrait

Lecture, 21 May 2011