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W. A. (Sir John Forrest), 1897

Gift of Ronald A Walker 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

A.J. Fischer, 1920s

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Australian Aborigines in R.A. Cunningham's touring company, Dusseldorf, Germany, c. 1885

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

What price self?

Jane Raffan investigates auction sales of self portraits nationally and internationally.

In Doubt, 2017

Sir Bernard Katz, 1993 (printed 2003)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004

Self portrait in green hues, c. 1962

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Philip Bacon AM 2001
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.

Copyright and reproductions

Request a digital copy of an image for publication

Brett Whiteley - portrait 2, 1975

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

Coral Browne, 1975

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

In the National Interest

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.

Steven Heathcote, 2007

Gift of the artist 2008

Catherine Livingstone, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2018

Julia Gillard, 2013

Gift of the artist 2013

Professor Paul Korner, 2011

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ann Korner, Nicholas Korner, Anthony Korner and Harriet Bingham 2015

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.

Cooey! An Australian Song

"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.

Brett Whiteley - portrait 1, 1975

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

Self portrait with gladioli, 1922

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

POL

POL was a magazine that ran from 1969 to 1986

Dancer

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

Black and white history

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

Australia and the Nobel Prize

This unique exhibition will give an insight into the private lives, pursuits and work of all the Nobel laureates associated with Australia

Not perspiring, but glowing.

Angus Trumble explores the creative manifestations of radiance.

Lewis Morley

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

Frances Perry, c. 1863

Purchased 2012

Richard Pratt, 2003 (printed 2011)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Disability in Australia

The Gallery subscribes to the social model of disability that distinctively signals the difference between a person’s individual condition or impairment, and the barriers they experience which are created by the environment and society around them.

Gotta catch 'em all

Angus Trumble grabs his life jacket and rides the Pokémon GO tsunami.

Celebrity cutpurse

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

Catherine Livingstone, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2018

Money for Myth

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

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.

To Look Within

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

Bonfire of the vanities

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

Seduce and Destroy

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

Primed

Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.

All dressed up

Jane Raffan asks do clothes make the portrait, and can the same work with a new title fetch a better price?

Poets' Portraits

The Portrait Gallery's paintings of two poets, Les Murray and Peter Porter, demonstrate two very different artists' responses to the challenge of representing more than usually sensitive and imaginative men.

Shiny, happy people

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

Keep it in the family

David Solkin ponders the provocations and inspirations of the enigmatic Thomas Gainsborough.

The numbers man

Dr. Sarah Engledow tells the story of Australia's first Federal statistician, Sir George Knibbs.

The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush

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.

Expect the unexpected

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

Top shot that

Gideon Haigh discusses portraits of Australian cricketers from the early 20th century

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

Their brilliant careers

Jenny Gall delves into Starstruck to celebrate some of Australian cinema’s iconic women.

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.

Empirical art

Several years ago I came across this curious painting on the racks in a distant, dusty corner of the store room in the basement of the Johannesburg Art Gallery in South Africa. Since then the mystery surrounding it has never been far from my mind. 

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.

Terms and conditions

These terms and conditions govern entries to the National Portrait Gallery’s Darling Portrait Prize 2024.

Private virtues public lives

Family affections are preserved in a fine selection of intimate portraits.

It's a Mora!

Select extracts from Mirka Mora's autobiography, Wicked but Virtuous, provide rich accompaniment to recent Gallery acquisitions.  

Drawing inspiration

Christopher Chapman absorbs the gentle touch of Don Bachardy’s portraiture.

Embrace your inner nerd

The southern winter has arrived. For people in the northern hemisphere (the majority of humanity) the idea of snow and ice, freezing mist and fog in June, potentially continuing through to August and beyond, encapsulates the topsy-turvidom of our southern continent.

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.

Terms and conditions

Through thick and thin

Sarah Engledow likes the manifold mediums of Nicholas Harding’s portraiture.

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.

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.

Demimonde liaisons

Jane Raffan feasts on modernity’s entrée in the Belle Époque theatre of the demimonde.

Unknown drawer

Dempsey’s People curator David Hansen chronicles a research tale replete with serendipity, adventure and Tasmanian tigers.

Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits

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

Study in scarlet

Angus Trumble reflects on the force of nature that was Helena Rubinstein.

Political profiles

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 Black Death

The best horror stories are real. A flea sinks its proboscis into the skin of a sick black rat, feeds on its blood, and ingests lethally multiplying bacteria.