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Ruby Hunter (1955-2010), singer/songwriter, was a Ngarrindjeri/ Kukatha/ Pitjantjatjara woman from South Australia.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2012
Ruby Lindsay (1885-1919), artist and illustrator, left home at 16 and went to Melbourne where she studied at the National Gallery School.
3 portraits in the collection
Bill Hunter (1940-2011), actor, spent five decades on Australian television and cinema screens.
1 portrait in the collection
Philip Hunter (1958-2017), painter, studied art in Melbourne before holding his first solo exhibition there in 1982.
1 portrait in the collection
Robert Hunter (1947-2014), painter, trained at Preston Technical College and RMIT from 1964 to 1967, and was deeply impressed by the work of American abstractionist Ad Reinhardt in Melbourne in 1967.
1 portrait in the collection
Suzie Petyarre (also spelt Pitjara) Hunter (b. c. 1966), painter, is an Alyawarre woman who lives a traditional life in the bush at Irrultja, Utopia.
1 portrait in the collection
John Hunter (1737-1821), naval officer and governor, came to Sydney as second captain of the Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2004. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
I have been reading systematically through the ads in the earliest issues of the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, such a rich vein of information about certain aspects of daily life in Regency Sydney.
Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008
Joanna Gilmour recounts the story of ill-fated sea voyages in the early stages of the Antipodean colony.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
A bond in song
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, ideas about equality and liberty had begun to filter through to fashion.
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
Purchased with funds provided by Tim Bednall 2021
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.
Archie Roach AC (1956–2022), singer/songwriter and storyteller, has been described as the voice of the Stolen Generations.
2 portraits in the collection
Murray Tyrrell AM (1921-2000) was a winemaker. Born in the Hunter Valley, Tyrrell served in the Pacific during World War II and became a cattle trader when he was repatriated.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2010
Steve Irwin (1962-2006) achieved international fame as the 'Crocodile Hunter'.
1 portrait in the collection
Will (William Henry) Dyson, cartoonist, caricaturist, writer and draughtsman, was born in Alfredtown, near Ballarat, and studied for a short time in Melbourne, where he worked closely with his older brother Ambrose.
11 portraits in the collection
Gift of the artist 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
The ravishing muse
Munnan Studios operated from premises in Hunter Street, Sydney, from around 1915.
1 portrait in the collection
William Ridley, stipple engraver, worked as an illustrator for a variety of magazines.
5 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006
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
Purchased 2010
The Darling Prize is a new biennial prize for Australian portrait painters, painting Australian sitters. The winner receives a cash prize of $75,000.
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.
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009
Finalist, DPA 2017
Single channel HD digital video
Sir Lionel Lindsay (1874-1961), graphic artist, was the brother of Norman, Percy, Daryl and Ruby Lindsay and shared with his siblings an early obsession with drawing and printmaking.
5 portraits in the collection
Robin Sellick captured a rare moment of quietude from the late conservation star Steve Irwin.
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Eleven works by Brett Whiteley, centred around his scintillating 'Patrick White at Centennial Park 1979-1980'.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008
Bruce Pollard (b. 1936), gallerist, established the Pinocotheca Gallery in a St Kilda mansion in 1967, and relocated it to an old hat factory in Richmond in 1970.
1 portrait in the collection
Kelvin Kong AM is a Worimi doctor who grew up in Port Stephens, New South Wales.
1 portrait in the collection
Ann Mary Windeyer (née Rudd, c. 1783–1865) arrived in Sydney in 1828 with her husband Charles Windeyer (1780–1855) and nine of their ten children.
1 portrait in the collection
Charles Windeyer (1780-1855), magistrate, emigrated to Australia in 1828, having worked as a journalist, publisher and parliamentary reporter in London.
2 portraits in the collection
Philip Gidley King (1758-1808), naval officer and governor, joined the navy in late 1770 and served in the East Indies and American waters.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2007
Maurice O'Shea (1897-1956) is remembered as a key figure in the formation of the modern Australian wine industry.
1 portrait in the collection
Nolan Heads will focus on the portraiture of one of Australia's most original painters and one of the few to have achieved an international reputation
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
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
An interview with the photographer.
Purchased 2014
John Schank (1740–1823), naval officer, joined the Royal Navy at age 17, having served in the merchant service as a boy.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2005
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of J Sages Family Trust 2009
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
Purchased 2010
John Shortland (1739-1803), naval officer, was a member of a family of which six members were associated with the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the artist 2005. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015
John Williams AO OBE, (b. 1941), guitar virtuoso, had his first guitar lessons from his father, and from the age of eleven attended summer schools with the Spanish maestro Andrés Segovia in Italy.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
Purchased 2015
Purchased 2017
Gift of the family of FW Macpherson 2010
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Purchased 2022
Ali Cobby Eckermann (b. 1963), Yankunytjatjara/Kothaka author and poet, was born in Adelaide.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of Frank Watters OAM 2018. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Jean-François de Galaup la Pérouse, Comte de la Pérouse (1741-1788), navigator, joined the French navy as a boy, rising to the rank of captain and serving with distinction and humanity in campaigns against the English in Hudson Bay in 1782.
4 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Timothy Fairfax AC 2003
Gift of Hon RL Hunter KC 2006. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Joanna Russell Maher (née Windeyer) 2018
Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2001
Julian Kingma (b. 1968), photographer, began his career in 1988 as a cadet for the Herald newspaper in Melbourne, and later worked for the Sunday Age as Head Features Photographer.
11 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Ted and Gina Gregg 2012
Jane Windeyer (1865–1950) was the second eldest daughter of politician and judge Sir William Charles Windeyer (1834–1897) and his wife, Mary (née Bolton, 1837–1912), a leading campaigner for women’s rights.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2005
Richard Windeyer (1806-1847), journalist, barrister and politician, was the eldest of the ten children born to Charles Windeyer and his wife Ann Mary and remained in England when the rest of his family went to New South Wales.
3 portraits in the collection
Gift of J.B. Windeyer 2018
Bill Neidjie OAM (c. 1913-2002), a Gagadju man, was the traditional custodian of the Kakadu area of the Northern Territory and spent most of his childhood in this region.
1 portrait in the collection
Jane Campion DNZM (b. 1954), director, producer and screenwriter, is the first woman to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes and the second woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, both for her acclaimed film The Piano (1993).
1 portrait in the collection
Sandra Bruce chats with seven-time NPPP finalist Chris Budgeon about photography, guitars and representing the human story.
Richard Rouse (1774-1852), grazier and landowner, came to New South Wales in 1801 as a free settler with his wife Elizabeth (née Adams, 1772-1849) and the first two of their nine children.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017
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
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2012
Imelda Roche AO (b. 1934), with husband Bill, introduced the Nutri-Metics skin care range to Australia in 1968.
1 portrait in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Windeyer family 2012
Purchased 2011
Patrick White (1912–1990), acknowledged as Australia’s pre-eminent novelist of the 20th century, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973 for The Eye of the Storm, ‘for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature’.
7 portraits in the collection
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
Glenn Murcutt AO (b. 1936), architect, received the world's highest architectural honour when he was awarded the Pritzker Prize in April 2002.
4 portraits in the collection
Gift of the artist 2008
The exhibition Sages examines the process of portrait making through four large-scale portraits of women by Jenny Sages, paired with intimate preparatory drawings.
Curator, Sarah Engledow, introduces the artists and the animals in The Popular Pet Show.
Commissioned 2003
Gift of J.B. Windeyer 2018
Sandra Bruce gazes on love and the portrait through Australian Love Stories’ multi-faceted prism.
Tom LeGarde (1931–2021) and Ted LeGarde (1931–2018), 'The LeGarde Twins', were early pioneers of country music.
1 portrait in the collection
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
Ted LeGarde (1931–2018) and Tom LeGarde (1931–2021), ‘The LeGarde Twins’, were early pioneers of country music.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2001
Gift of the Windeyer family 2009. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.
Sir James Fergusson (1832–1907), governor, was educated at Rugby School and was still a student there when he succeeded his father as Baronet of Kilkerran in 1849.
1 portrait in the collection
Mary Windeyer (née Bolton, 1837-1912), women's rights campaigner, was one of the nine children of Robert Thorley Bolton, a clergyman who emigrated to New South Wales in 1839.
3 portraits in the collection
Judith Wright (1915–2000), poet, conservationist and Aboriginal land rights campaigner, was born at Thalgaroch Station, near Armidale, NSW, into a pastoralist family whose origins go back to the first settlement in the Hunter Valley in the 1820s.
3 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016
Henry Searle (1886–1889), a sculler known as the ‘Clarence River Comet’, took up rowing as a boy as a means of getting himself and his siblings to and from school.
1 portrait in the collection
Gift of the artist 2004
Michelle Fracaro describes Lionel Lindsay's woodcut The Jester (self-portrait).
The self-portrait enables students to explore emerging and changing aspects of their own identity, their sense of self, their place in the world, their experience of being human
William Francis King (1807-1873), aka 'The Flying Pieman', accomplished a series of bizarre athletic feats during the 1840s.
1 portrait in the collection
Philippe Mora (b. 1949), filmmaker, artist and writer, is the eldest son of artist Mirka Mora and restauranteur and gallery owner Georges Mora.
1 portrait in the collection
Rosalie Kunoth-Monks OAM (1937-2022), Arrernte and Anmatjere woman, Aboriginal activist, former actress and nun, was born at Artekerre soak on Utopia Cattle Station in the Northern Territory, the daughter of Allan and Ruby Kunoth.
2 portraits in the collection
Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David KBE (1858-1934) was an eminent geologist.
2 portraits in the collection
Robert Oatley AO (1928–2016), businessman, was one of Australia’s most successful wine industry figures.
Gift of Pamela Glasson 2009
Collected by Leila Haigh (nee Rouse)
Maria Windeyer (née Camfield, 1795–1878), landowner, emigrated to New South Wales in 1835 with her husband Richard, a barrister, and their infant son, William Charles.
2 portraits in the collection
Purchased 2018
The National Portrait Gallery acquired a beguiling silhouette group portrait by Samuel Metford, an English artist who spent periods of his working life in America.
Richard Fitzgerald (1772-1840), convict, public servant and settler, spent four years of his seven-year sentence imprisoned (probably on a floating 'hulk') at Portsmouth before arriving in Sydney in 1791, along with his private assets.
1 portrait in the collection
Following the success of Glossy: Faces, Magazines, Now in 1999 the National Portrait Gallery again highlights the huge array of contemporary portraiture in the pages of magazines.
Piper (life dates unknown), also known as John Piper, was a Wiradjuri man who acted as a guide to Thomas Mitchell’s surveying expedition along the Murray and Darling Rivers into present-day Victoria in 1836.
2 portraits in the collection
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Estate of Stuart Campbell 2012
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010
Australian artist and Archibald Prize winner, Jenny Sages reflects on her work.
Purchased 1998
Kerry Walker AM, actor, graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1974 and made her professional stage debut in a melée in Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet with the Australian Ballet.
1 portrait in the collection
Purchased 2011
A major new exhibition celebrating love in all its guises. Opening 20 March 2021.
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
During his long and distinguished career Max Dupain took thousands of photographs of people
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
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.
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.
'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.
The votes have been counted, and the winners of the National Portrait Gallery’s People’s Choice Awards for the Prize exhibitions are...
Robert Oatley talks about the repatriation of the John Webber portrait of Captain James Cook.
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.
Dr Christopher Chapman, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2009 Prize.
Robert Brown (1773–1858) is considered ‘the father of Australian botany’.
2 portraits in the collection
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.
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.
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.
The Australian of the Year Awards have often provoked controversy about who is selected and whether their achievements are remarkable.
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.
We encourage you to look, to feel, to think, to question and most importantly, to identify and connect.
Shea Kirk’s portrait of friend and fellow-artist Emma Armstrong-Porter has won the 2023 National Photographic Portrait Prize.
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.
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
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.
Purchased 2018
Jude Rae contemplates the portrait commission.
Jon Muir, adventurer and Portrait Gallery Collection subject, really knows about isolation.
In recent years I have become fascinated by the so-called Sydney Cove Medallion (1789), a work of art that bridges the 10,000-mile gap between the newly established penal settlement at Port Jackson and the beating heart of Enlightenment England.
Michael Desmond, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2007 Prize.
Michael Desmond profiles a handful of the entrants in first National Photographic Portrait Prize and notes emerging themes and categories.
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.
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
In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.
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.
Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.
John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.
The life and art of Australian artist Jenny Sages is on display in the exhibition Paths to Portraiture.
A focus on Indigenous-European relationships underpins Facing New Worlds. By Kate Fullagar.
Family affections are preserved in a fine selection of intimate portraits.
Charting a path from cockatiel to finch, Annette Twyman explores her family portraits and stories.
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.
Alexandra Roginski gets a feel for phrenology’s fundamentals.
Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.
The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825.
The art of Australia’s colonial women painters affords us an invaluable, alternative perspective on the nascent nation-building project.
Anne Sanders celebrates the cinematic union of two pioneering australian women.