Search / thomas brisbane

Frederick Bromley after Robert Frain

Thomas Mackdougall Brisbane (1773-1860) was born into an aristocratic Scottish family and entered the army at the age of 16.

2 portraits in the collection

Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1842

James Faed, W Wilding after John Watson Gordon

Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2008

General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1850 (published)

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

Katharine Brisbane

Recorded 1974

Katharine Brisbane, 1982 (printed 2017)

Robert McFarlane

Murray Studio (Brisbane & Gympie)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2017

Mabel Forrest, 1917

Portrait drawings from colonial Australia

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

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.

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort and his wife Theresa, c. 1847

an unknown artist, Thomas Wharton

Portrait, daguerreotype in a pinchbeck case

Purchased 2001

The Bushranger Tragedy (from The Australasian Sketcher, 23 November 1878)

The Bushranger Tragedy (from The Australasian Sketcher, 23 November 1878), 1878

an unknown artist, The Australasian Sketcher

Portrait, wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2003

David M Thomas

Dream Job

Previous exhibition, 2011

Since 1993 Brisbane-based artist David M Thomas has investigated self identity through art works that encompass painting, text, audio, video and performance.

Andy Thomas

'When I grow up I want to be an astronaut'

Portrait story

An interview with Australian astronaut, Dr. Andy Thomas, who describes the experience of space travel.

Thomas Atkinson

Thomas Lewis Atkinson (1817-c. 1890) is described in the Benezit Dictionary of Artists as 'one of the shining representatives of English engraving'.

1 portrait in the collection

Avril Thomas

Avril Thomas (b. 1956), artist, was born in Malaysia and went to boarding school in Scotland and Australia.

2 portraits in the collection

Rover Thomas

Rover Thomas (1926-1998), Kukatja-Wangkajunga artist, was born in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia and worked as a stockman and fencer before losing his employment upon the introduction of equal pay for indigenous workers in 1975.

1 portrait in the collection

Gubbo Thomas

Guboo Ted Thomas (1909–2002), land rights activist, was a tribal Elder of the Yuin nation and grew up on the Wallaga Lake Reserve near Narooma.

1 portrait in the collection

Andy Thomas AO

Andy Thomas AO (b. 1951) is an astronaut. Born and educated in Adelaide, an engineer by profession, he managed a number of aeronautical programs and patented several inventions before joining NASA in 1992.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Thomas Lord

Thomas Daunt Lord (1783–1865) was the commandant of the convict station on Maria Island from 1825 until 1832.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Buddle

Thomas Buddle (1812-1883), Wesleyan missionary, worked for 42 years in New Zealand, ministering to Maori and colonists in the Waikato, Auckland and the south.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook produced portraits for the Gentleman's Magazine and frontispieces for book publishers, as well as a number of single plates in different genres for Boydell.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Muir

Thomas Muir (1765-1799), lawyer, political activist and political convict, began studies at the University of Glasgow at the age of twelve.

2 portraits in the collection

Thomas Bock

Thomas Bock, artist, printmaker and photographer, is believed to have been born at Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, in 1790.

3 portraits in the collection

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Sydney 1891 from Australasia Illustrated

Hon. Thomas Playford

The Hon. Thomas Playford was a delegate from South Australia to the Constitutional Convention, Sydney, 1891.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Keneally AO

Thomas Keneally (b.1935), author and republican activist, has achieved a considerable reputation for the breadth and accessibility of his writing, and his passion for causes about which many Australians feel deeply.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas J. Washbourne

Thomas J Washbourne worked as a photographer in Geelong and Melbourne in the 1860s and 70s.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas de Kessler

Thomas de Kessler, artist, came to Australia from Hungary in 1950. Born into an academic and creative family, he spoke several languages and had attended art school before arriving in Melbourne.

3 portraits in the collection

Thomas Clark

Thomas Clark, teacher and painter, arrived in Victoria from England in about 1852, having been anatomical draftsman at King's College London and headmaster of the Birmingham School of Design.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Pennant

Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), Welsh traveller, antiquary, naturalist, and author, visited Joseph Banks in September 1771, shortly after Banks returned from his voyage with Cook on the Endeavour.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Purves

Thomas Purves (1909-1969), known as Tam, founded the Australian Galleries in Smith Street, Collingwood, Melbourne with his wife Anne in 1956.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Pearce

Thomas Pearce (c. 1860-1909) was an apprentice on the English merchant vessel the Loch Ard, which embarked for Victoria in March 1878 carrying 37 crew and 16 passengers, many from the Carmichael family.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Thomas Lawrence

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

8 portraits in the collection

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

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

Thomas McIntyre

A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Lonigan

A police party comprising Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlan and McIntyre was dispatched to capture the Kelly gang in 1878.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Keneally part two

Recorded 1967

Thomas Keneally part one

Recorded 1967

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Sir Thomas Lawrence

Portrait, pen and ink on paper

Self portrait, 1971

Thomas de Kessler

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Diana de Kessler 2009

Artist David M Thomas lists some of the ideas and influences behind his video portraits.

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

Thomas Heathfield Carrick

Thomas Heathfield Carrick, miniature painter, grew up in Carlisle, where he trained and traded as a chemist, painting miniatures in his spare time.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Griffiths Wainewright

Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794-1847) is one of the most intriguing and talented figures in colonial Australian art.

4 portraits in the collection

Thomas Herbert Maguire

Thomas Herbert Maguire was a painter and lithographer working in London in the middle of the nineteenth century.

4 portraits in the collection

Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) travelled to Australia as a member of the expedition conducted by Owen Stanley on the Rattlesnake between 1846 and 1850.

2 portraits in the collection

Thomas Foster Chuck and Son

Thomas Foster Chuck (c. 1826-1898) specialised in photographing well-known colonists, many of whom featured amongst the 700 photographs in his huge mosaic The Explorers and Early Colonists of Victoria.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas James Lempriere

Portrait, etching on paper

Thomas Lempriere came to Tasmania in 1822, received a land grant and became a founding shareholder of the Bank of Van Diemen's Land.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas White, midshipman, c. 1838

John Kay

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort (1816-1878) was a merchant, shipbuilder, wool broker and pioneer of the technique of freezing meat for export.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Joseph Carr

Thomas Joseph Carr (1839–1917) was the second Catholic archbishop of Melbourne, the successor to James Alipius Goold.

2 portraits in the collection

Thomas Foster Chuck

Thomas Foster Chuck (1826-1898), photographer and entrepreneur, was born in London and arrived in Victoria in 1861.

4 portraits in the collection

Thomas Wentworth Wills

Portrait, inkjet print on rag paper

Thomas Wentworth (Tom) Wills (1836–1880), is popularly thought of as the co-inventor of Australian Rules football.

2 portraits in the collection

Rover Thomas, 1986

Martin van der Wal

Purchased 2005

Thomas Muir of Huntershill, 1838

John Kay

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Thomas Wentworth Wills

by Nat Thomas & Concettina Inserra

Portrait of mother (after Mirka), 2008

The Explorers & Early Colonists of Victoria

The Explorers & Early Colonists of Victoria, 1872

Portrait, composite albumen photograph on paper

Purchased 2018

Daniel Thomas, 1987

Judy Cassab AO CBE

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Mr Peter Kampfner 2013
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Thomas Christensen, 2006

by Mark Rogers

Major Thomas Lord, c. 1840

Purchased 2015

Andy Thomas, 2002

Montalbetti + Campbell

Commissioned with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2002

Thomas Woolner, c. 1865

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

Reverend Thomas Buddle, 1863

Batchelder & O'Neill

Thomas Woolner in Australia

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Missing Persons

Desperately seeking Woolner medallions

John Thomas "Jack" Lang

John Thomas Lang (1876–1975) served two terms as premier of New South Wales in the 1920s and 1930s.

5 portraits in the collection

Thomas Keneally, 1987

Bernd Heinrich

Portrait, stipple engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2005
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Thomas Pennant, c. 1790

William Ridley

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Thomas Leech, n.d.

Louis Kahan AO

Portrait, fibre-tipped pen on paper

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

Thomas Muir, 1800

François Bonneville

Portrait, copper-line engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Thomas Simson Pratt, c. 1863

Batchelder & O'Neill

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Thomas Fitzherbert Hawkins, c. 1790

Portrait, oil on cotton laid down on cardboard

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Peter E.B. Mansell 2018

The Last of the Angry Penguins - John Perceval, 1999

Thomas de Kessler

Portrait, ink, coloured pencil, gouache, crayon and fibre-tipped pen on double layer mount board with gold coloured ink border

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Thomas de Kessler 2001

Caroline Amelia Elizabeth
of Brunswick, 1804

Around the grounds

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2010

Anne Sanders writes about the exhibitions Victoria & Albert: Art & Love on display at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace and the retrospective of Sir Thomas Lawrence at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Jessie Robertson, c. 1849

Thomas Bock

Portrait, pencil, chalk and gouache on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC 2013

Jessie Whyte, c. 1840

Thomas Bock

Portrait, pastel and chalk on paper laid down on cotton over Cedar strainer

Purchased 2017

Portrait of Tam Purves, 1958

John Brack

Portrait, ink, coloured pencil, gouache, crayon and fibre-tipped pen on single mount board with gold coloured ink border

Purchased 2012

John Perceval, 1999

Thomas de Kessler

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Thomas de Kessler 2001

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.

Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks, c. 1814

Thomas Phillips

Purchased 2011

William Charles Wentworth, 1854

Portrait, cast bronze relief medallion

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

Sir Charles Nicholson, 1854

Portrait, cast bronze relief medallion

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased through the Foundation Acquisitions Fund 2015

Jack Lang

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on paper laid on cardboard

Recorded 1967

Queen Susan, c. 1868

Thomas J. Washbourne

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Thomas Townshend, Lord Viscount Sydney

Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney PC (1733-1800) was British Home Secretary in the Pitt Government, given responsibility for devising a plan to settle convicts at Botany Bay.

1 portrait in the collection

Thomas Stange Heiss Oscar Asche

Portrait, tinted lithograph on paper

Thomas Stange Heiss Oscar Asche (1871–1936), actor, director and producer, was one of Australia’s most successful theatre exports.

2 portraits in the collection

Sir Thomas Gore-Browne, 1864

J Walch & Sons

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Thomas Henry Huxley, c. 1870

Maull & Co Photographers

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Thomas Wentworth Wills, c. 1859

Portrait, 1/2 plate ambrotype with applied colour in a double elliptical brass matt in a leather case

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

Archbishop Thomas Joseph Carr, c. 1886

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Thomas Joseph Carr, Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, c. 1887

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on cabinet card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Lockdown dreaming II

John Morley, Madelin Bronar-Thomas and

Phillip Parker King, 1854

N Schiavonetti after Thomas Phillips

Portrait, cast plaster

Purchased 2000

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

Edward Paine Butler, c. 1845

Portrait, watercolour, gouache and pencil on paper

Purchased 2009

Portrait of Henry Hopkins, c. 1845

Portrait, watercolour on paper

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2013

William Robertson, 1866

Thomas Adams Hill

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

Portrait of His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria

Portrait of His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of Victoria, c. 1864

Thomas Clark

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007

Poison pen

Michael Desmond examines the career of the eighteenth-century suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

Charles Joseph La Trobe, 1853

Portrait, cast bronze relief medallion

Purchased 2006

The Cutmear sisters, Jane and Lucy, c. 1842

A man of superior attainments

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2013

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of a colonial portrait artist, writer and rogue Thomas Griffiths Wainewright.

Ellen Stirling, c. 1828

Thomas Phillips

Purchased with funds provided by the Ian Potter Foundation 2008

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

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on grey paper on card

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

Jack Lang, 1931

Tom Glover

Portrait, pencil, pen and ink on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Sir Edward Eyre Williams, 1872

Portrait, albumen silver photograph, hand coloured on paper

Gift of Ross and Judy O'Connell 2016

Bishop James Moore, c. 1888-1889

Charles Fox after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Alexander MacLeay, c. 1845

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Robert Brown, 1850

Thomas Herbert Maguire

Thomas Foster Chuck and Son

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Dr James Moorhouse, 1878-1879

Thomas Stewart after Jean Laurent Mosnier

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Chevalier d'Éon

George French Angas, Thomas McLean

South Australian Illustrated (Plate 35), 1847

Portrait, Lithograph

Thomas Pearce, c. 1878

The Photographic Society of Victoria, Melbourne

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite on card

Purchased 2010

The Final Frontier

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2002

Magda Keaney talks with Montalbetti+Campbell about their photographic portrait of Australian astronaut Andy Thomas.

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

John Cochran after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Portrait, fibreglass and resin

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Jack Lang, life mask, n.d.

Arthur Murch

Purchased 2000

Jack Lang, 1970

Adam Martin

an unknown artist after Thomas Bock

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Elsie Martin 2000

Jane Franklin, c. 1866-1875

Portrait, carved marble relief

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

The people's champion, Mr Lang, c. 1927

Portrait, cast plaster, painted

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson AC CVO MBE

Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson AC CVO MBE, 2006

Avril Thomas

Portrait, charcoal on paper

Commissioned 2006

Preparatory study for Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson AC CVO MBE

Preparatory study for Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson AC CVO MBE, 2005

Avril Thomas

Commissioned 2006

Martha Sarah Butler, c. 1845

Portrait, watercolour, gouache and pencil on paper

Purchased 2009

Captain W Kinghorne, 1834

Thomas James Lempriere

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2010

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by The Ian Potter Foundation 2007

Fine and dandy

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.

William Dampier, c. 1780

an unknown artist after Thomas Murray

Portrait, copper-line engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Jack Lang, c. 1930-1940

George Finey

Portrait, collage of coloured paper, pencil on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

John Gould, 1849

Thomas Herbert Maguire, M & N Hanhart

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

William Jackson Hooker, 1851

Thomas Herbert Maguire

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

William Henry Harvey, c. 1850

Thomas Herbert Maguire

Carlo Pellegrini, Vanity Fair Magazine

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Round the World (Thomas Brassey), 1877

Purchased 2015

Reverend William Bedford junior, c. 1846

Portrait, watercolour on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2013

Pre-Raphaelite Profile

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2006

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

Sir Joseph Banks, 1840s

C E. Wagstaff after Thomas Phillips

an unknown artist, D Bogue after Thomas Phillips

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

Captain Sir John Franklin, Kt, KCH, KRG, DCL, FRS & c. Commander of the Arctic Expedition, 1845

Captain Sir John Franklin, Kt, KCH, KRG, DCL, FRS & c. Commander of the Arctic Expedition, 1845, c. 1847

Samuel Bellin after Thomas Heathfield Carrick

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

Lord John Russell, 1844

Carlo Pellegrini, Vanity Fair Magazine

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Men of the Day No.19 "A great Med'cine-Man among the Inqui-ring Redskins" (Thomas Henry Huxley), 1871

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

Purchased 2015

Spikes: then and now

As part of its ongoing program of commissions of portraits of prominent Australians, the National Portrait Gallery has unveiled a portrait of Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson by South Australian artist Avril Thomas.

Sir Joseph Banks, 1810

William Evans, Anthony Cardon after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Thomas Atkinson, Samuel Mullen after Henry Weigall Jnr

Purchased with funds provided by the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Canberra 2000

The Right Reverend Lord Bishop of Melbourne (Dr. Charles Perry)

The Right Reverend Lord Bishop of Melbourne (Dr. Charles Perry), 1876

Samuel Freeman, Fisher, Son & Co London after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

William Lamb, Baron Melbourne, 1832

Thomas Woolnoth, Charles Knight

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

La Perouse, from a miniature in the possession of La Perouse's niece at Alby

La Perouse, from a miniature in the possession of La Perouse's niece at Alby, n.d.

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

The Burke and Wills Monument, 1869

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Lord Viscount Sydney, c. 1790

John Young after Gilbert Stuart

London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Oscar Asche, c. 1905

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on cabinet card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool

Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, 1827

Charles Turner after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Magazine article by Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby, 2018

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

HRH Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, 2006 Ralph Heimans AM

Dane reign

Mette Skougaard and Thomas Lyngby bring eloquent context to Ralph Heimans’ portraits of Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

Kismet (Mr Oscar Asche), 1912-1913

Alick Ritchie, Vanity Fair Magazine

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

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

Rt. Honourable Lord Hawkesbury, 1808

Henry Samuel Sadd, Fergusson & Mitchell, Melbourne after Thomas Adams Hill

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

William John Wills, 2nd in command of the Victorian Expedition

William John Wills, 2nd in command of the Victorian Expedition, 1860-1861

Henry Samuel Sadd, Fergusson & Mitchell, Melbourne after Thomas Adams Hill

Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2007

Robert O'Hara Burke, Leader of the Victorian Expedition

Robert O'Hara Burke, Leader of the Victorian Expedition, 1860-1861

Thomas Woolnoth, William Mackenzie, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London & New York

Purchased with funds provided by Ross A Field 2007

La Perouse, 1830s

Portrait, albumen silver photograph

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

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

'The Australian Cricketers' from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News June 1882, page 1

Unknown artist Publisher Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News

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

Henry Meyer, T Cadell & W Davies after Sir Thomas Lawrence, William Evans

Portrait, daguerreotype

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

The Rt Hon. Henry Robert Stewart, Lord Viscount Castlereagh, MRIA & FRS

The Rt Hon. Henry Robert Stewart, Lord Viscount Castlereagh, MRIA & FRS, 1814

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

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

Tiny Trace of a Colonial Giant

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.

Woburn Sheepshearing, 1811

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

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

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

Burnum Burnum and Guboo Ted Thomas, 1984

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Purchased 2004

Robert Earl of Buckinghamshire (Hobart), 1808

Robert Dunkarton after Sir Thomas Lawrence

Magazine article by Stuart Purves, 2016

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Bonfire of the vanities

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

Henry Bathurst, Earl Bathurst, 1810

Henry Meyer after Thomas Phillips

Portrait, soft ground etching on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Captain James Cook FRS, 1784

Thomas Cook

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2007

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

Painting writing

Dr Sarah Engledow explores the portraits of writers held in the National Portrait Gallery's collection.

'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

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Sydney 1891 from Australasia Illustrated, 1891

Portrait, engraving on paper (4 sheets)

Purchased 2009

Strong Avenue, Graceville, Brisbane

Stuart Miller

Kumantjayi Perkins at the Roma Forum, Brisbane

Kumantjayi Perkins at the Roma Forum, Brisbane, 1982

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

Rowan Thomas, 2015

by Graham Caughley

Thomas from series Bois to Men, 2014

by Monique Montfroy

Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel

Sir Peter Paul Rubens

Troy Cassar-Daley, Brisbane, 2004

John Elliott

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005

Season of Change

Maxim Chikanchi

Gav & Ray, 2007

by Richard Walker

Wedgwood and Bentley

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), potter and industrialist, became an apprentice to his potter brother, Thomas, at an early age.

1 portrait in the collection

Seeing stars

Celebrating Science Week

Portrait, coloured chalk and black ink on artist board

It has been suggested that Sir Thomas Brisbane’s interest in the New South Wales governorship was as attributable to his passion for astronomy as to the desirability of the position as a prestigious career move.

Sir Ernest Thomas Fisk, 1943-1944

Charles Wheeler

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019

Daphne Mayo MBE

Daphne Mayo MBE (1895–1982), sculptor, was born in Sydney and moved to Brisbane as a child.

1 portrait in the collection

Lewis Pingo

Lewis Pingo was an engraver at the Royal Mint. Pingo's father Thomas, an Italian-born medallist and die engraver, was one of the founders of the Royal Academy in 1768.

1 portrait in the collection

Kevin Weldon AM

Kevin Weldon (1933-2023), businessman and philanthropist, spent his early years in Ingham in far north Queensland, where his father ran a car dealership.

1 portrait in the collection

Davida Allen

Davida Allen is a Queensland artist. As a student at Brisbane's Stuartholme School in the 1960s she had Betty Churcher as an art teacher.

2 portraits in the collection

Paddy Jaminji (Jampin)

Paddy Jaminji (Jampin) (1912-1996), Kija visual artist, spent much of his life in and around his country near Bedford Downs station in WA.

1 portrait in the collection

A head for business and a heart for love

Lust

For love, not money

Theresa Mort

Theresa Shepheard Mort (née Laidley, 1820-1869), colonial spouse, was one of eight children of civil servant James Laidley and his wife Eliza Jane (née Shepheard).

2 portraits in the collection

Sir Henry Barkly

Portrait story

An interview with former National Portrait Gallery Director, Andrew Sayers, who describes the portrait of Sir Henry Barkly by Thomas Clark.

Kevin Weldon, 1978

Graeme Inson

Gift of Kevin Weldon 2012

Noel McGrowdie

Noel 'Digger' McGrowdie (1920-1961), jockey, was born in Brisbane and educated at a Christian Brothers School in Toowoomba before being apprenticed in Brisbane at the age of fourteen.

1 portrait in the collection

John Williams

John Williams (1796-1839), missionary, began his working life in 1810, apprenticed to an ironmonger, but in 1814 he underwent an Evangelical conversion and became a member of the Tabernacle Church (Calvinistic Methodist).

1 portrait in the collection

The last bushrangers

It's Complicated

Brothers in harms

Christopher Morris

Christopher Morris studied photography at Griffith University in Brisbane in the mid 1990s, during which he photographed many of the leading names in contemporary music including U2, Oasis, Pearl Jam, The Sex Pistols and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

1 portrait in the collection

Second thoughts, 2008

by Brad Mitchell

Tish Linehan

UK-born, Brisbane-based artist Tish Linehan (b. 1983) gained her undergraduate degree in visual arts from the Australian National University and subsequently completed a teaching qualification.

1 portrait in the collection

Susan Lord, c. 1840

Purchased 2015

Christine Rivett

Amy Christine Rivett (1891–1962), doctor, contributed greatly to medicine and women's health.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait 61

Summer 2018/19

Max Dupain's unknown portrait subjects, phrenologist Madame Sibly, Indigenous-European relationships, Thomas Gainsborough and more.

Jun Chen

Portrait, inkjet print on rag paper

Jun Chen (b. 1960), based in Brisbane, trained in traditional Chinese brush painting at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China.

1 portrait in the collection

Paddy Jaminji, 1986

Martin van der Wal

Purchased 2005

Dylan Mooney: You say tru gawd

Eddie Liu, 2012

by David Kelly

Thea Anamara Perkins: Hey you mob

Kyra Mancktelow: You’re just too deadly

Tony Albert: Aww bless

Pam MacFarlane

Portrait, white on blue Jasper Ware in oval shaped wood and gilt frame

Pamela MacFarlane was born in Dunedin, NZ and completed a Master's degree in Zoology at the University of Otago in the 1940s.

1 portrait in the collection

Tribute

Betty Churcher

Magazine article, 2015

Betty Churcher AO (1931–2015), gallery director, author, painter and lecturer, was educated in Brisbane before studying art in London.

Jasperware medallion of Captain James Cook

Jasperware medallion of Captain James Cook, 1779

Wedgwood and Bentley

Purchased with funds provided by Robert Oatley AO 2007

Sir Francis Forbes KNt

Portrait, colour lithograph on paper

Sir Francis Forbes (1784–1841) was the first chief justice of the New South Wales Supreme Court.

1 portrait in the collection

Equestrian self portrait, 2004

William Robinson AO

Purchased 2022

Thomas Mathewson (inset) and his studio on Queen Street, c. 1908 by Thomas Mathewson & Co

Northern exposure

Magazine article by Phil Manning, 2017

Phil Manning celebrates a century of Brisbane photographic portraiture.

Edward Henty, late 19th century

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Tim Clark 2018

Francis Lymburner

Previous exhibition, 2020

Francis Lymburner (1916-1972) was a Queensland-born artist who was educated at Brisbane Grammar and took art classes at Brisbane Technical College.

2 portraits 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.

Dowling family portrait [Selina, Jane, Leura and Elizabeth (Bessie) Dowling]

Dowling family portrait [Selina, Jane, Leura and Elizabeth (Bessie) Dowling], c. 1862

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

Joan Kerr

Joan Kerr (1938-2004), art historian, writer and lecturer, was responsible for several key reference texts on Australian art.

1 portrait in the collection

Maria Dowling and her children Leura, Bessie, Selina, Jane, Jack, Ben and Joe Dowling [Selina Dowling, Jane Dowling, Maria Jane Dowling (née Ware), John Ware Dowling, Joseph Dowling, Benjamin Dowling, Elizabeth (Bessie) Dowling, Leura Dowling]

Maria Dowling and her children Leura, Bessie, Selina, Jane, Jack, Ben and Joe Dowling [Selina Dowling, Jane Dowling, Maria Jane Dowling (née Ware), John Ware Dowling, Joseph Dowling, Benjamin Dowling, Elizabeth (Bessie) Dowling, Leura Dowling], c. 1859

Portrait, ambrotype, hand coloured

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

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.

hey, Betty (Portrait of Betty Churcher), 1990

Davida Allen

Portrait, oil on plywood

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

Portrait 5

September - November 2002

This issue of Portrait Magazine features Bill Leak's portrait of Robert Hughes, Polly Borland's photographs, Bill Brandt, Andy Thomas, Tracey Moffatt and more.

Noel McGrowdie, 1957 (printed 2003)

More about In the flesh artists

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

Pamela See (Xue Mei-Ling)

Contributing artists

Born: 1979, Brisbane
Works: Brisbane

Yanni Floros

Yanni Floros is an Adelaide based artist who trained at the National Art School in Sydney graduating as a sculpture major. Since then he has shown his work both locally and internationally in Berlin, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

William St Leonards Robertson (standing) beside an unidentified man

William St Leonards Robertson (standing) beside an unidentified man, early 1880s

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

Leura Dowling, c. 1861

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

Maria Jane Dowling, c. 1862

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

Portrait 35

March - May 2010

This issue features suspected poisoner and portrait artist Thomas Wainewright, Rick Amor, Chuck Close, Mick Dodson, Scott Redford, the National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition and more.

Harold Parker

Harold Parker (1873-1962), sculptor, came to Brisbane with his English parents as a three-year old.

1 portrait in the collection

The Hon. James Whyte, c. 1874

John Hubert Newman

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

Jules Poret de Blosseville

Portrait, eight carte de visites, hand coloured, contained in a red leather presentation case

Jules Poret de Blosseville (1802-1833), geographer, navigator and explorer, was a junior officer on the Coquille, which, under the command of Louis Isidore Duperrey, conducted a voyage to Oceania and South America between 1822 and 1825.

1 portrait in the collection

William and Martha Mary Robertson and their children [William St Leonards, Eliza, John, William St Leonards on a horse, Beatrice and Ida]

William and Martha Mary Robertson and their children [William St Leonards, Eliza, John, William St Leonards on a horse, Beatrice and Ida], 1860s-1870s

Various

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

Jon Molvig

Helge Jon Molvig was born and grew up in Newcastle, where he left school at thirteen and worked in a garage and at the steelworks.

6 portraits in the collection

Anna Pavlova, 1926

Harold Cazneaux

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Gordon Shepherdson

Gordon Shepherdson (b. 1934), painter, was a student of Molvig's and Sibley's in Brisbane.

1 portrait in the collection

Dylan Mooney

Artists and Collectives

Dylan Mooney, a proud Yuwi man from Mackay, Queensland, based in Meanjin/Brisbane, works across painting, printmaking, digital illustration and drawing, visually translating stories of resilience, survival, connection and love.

Sarah Siddons (née Kemble)

John Downman

Sends a permanent shiver down my spine

She saved his life. He showed her painting.

Nearest & Dearest

Leaders, painters, friends

Oz Punk

More about In the flesh artists

In 1976, without having been blooded on the Sydney or Melbourne pub circuit, The Saints recorded a single – ‘(I’m) Stranded’ – earning them the distinction of releasing a punk single before The Sex Pistols did.

Jan Nelson

Jan Nelson was born in Melbourne. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1983 and has been exhibited her work in both solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia since that time including at the MCA, Sydney, National Gallery of Victoria, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane and the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide.

Album of cartes de visite and cabinet cards compiled by William St Leonards Robertson, 1860s-c. 1900

Various

Portrait, 24 page brown leather bound album of 119 cartes de visite and 16 cabinet card photographs

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

Betty Churcher, 2008

Adam Knott

Purchased 2013

Darby McCarthy, c. 1969 (printed 2019)

Purchased 2019

Darby McCarthy OAM

Richard 'Darby' McCarthy OAM (1945–2020), former jockey who rode in three Melbourne Cups and won more than 1000 races, is a proud descendant of the Mithaka and Goongurri people of south-west and central Queensland.

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

John Chapman

Little is known of John Chapman, who engraved fine allegorical subjects after the designs of J Smith and Richard Corbould and worked closely with Thomas Macklin on his Shakespeare series.

2 portraits in the collection

Ian Frazer, 2007

Marian Drew

Commissioned 2007

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

Christopher Bassi

Artists and Collectives

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

My Le Thi

My Le Thi is a Vietnamese-Australian singer, musician and artist. Born in Buon Ma Thout, South Vietnam in 1964, she migrated to Australia in late 1985 and settled in Brisbane.

1 portrait in the collection

Marion

Glenn Homann

Mel, 2011

by Heather Faulkner

Portrait, ilfochrome photograph on paper

Betty Churcher, 1994

Anne Zahalka

Gift of the artist 2021

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

Friendship’s rhyme and reason

Nearest & Dearest

Poetic trio

Through the Eyes of my Family

Ting Jiang

The vigil, 2011

by Anthony Anderton

Oodgeroo Noonuccal at Moongalba, 1982

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Purchased 2004

Oodgeroo Noonuccal at Moongalba Stradbroke Island (her sitting down place)1982

Oodgeroo Noonuccal at Moongalba Stradbroke Island (her sitting down place)1982, 1982

Gift of the artist 2009

Nigel Brennan

Nigel Brennan studied photography at Griffith University and works primarily in photo-documentary.

1 portrait in the collection

Al Grassby and Penny Dent, Community Relations Commission, Canberra

Al Grassby AM

The Hon. Al Grassby AM (1926-2005) was born in Brisbane of a second-generation Spanish father and an Irish mother.

1 portrait in the collection

Arthur Beetson, 1968 (printed 2019)

Purchased 2019

Shirley Purdie

Shirley Purdie (b. 1947) is a senior Gija artist at the Warmun Art Centre who has been painting for more than twenty years.

1 portrait in the collection

Paquita Mawson, late 1940s

Ingrid Erns

Previous exhibition, 2013

Gift of Gareth Mawson Thomas and Pamela Karran-Thomas of the Mawson family 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Our only concern is the void, 2013 by Nik Lee, video: 12 minutes

Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award 2013

The Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award is an annual event intended to extend traditional notions of portraiture and reflects the National Portrait Gallery's commitment to fostering emerging artists with an interest in contemporary technology.

Martha Knox, c. 1855

Portrait, watercolour on ivory in locket frame

Portrait, daguerreotype

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

Harold Parker, c. 1906

Bessie Gibson

Gift of Rosamond Shepherd 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Sidney Riley Studios

Sidney Riley Studios operated concurrently at several Sydney locations (Balmain, Rozelle, Pitt St., Sydney, Marrickville & Chatswood), and in Brisbane, between 1911 and 1946.

1 portrait in the collection

Quentin Bryce, 2002 (printed 2011)

Lorrie Graham

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on board

Purchased 2011

Douglas Mawson, 1933

Henry James Haley

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Gareth Mawson Thomas and Pamela Karran-Thomas of the Mawson family 2010
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Portrait bust of Dr Christine Rivett, c. 1950 (cast 1955-1956)

Daphne Mayo MBE

Portrait, cast bronze

Gift of Justice Ian Callinan 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

'New home new life' Arwin, 2017

by Zia Atahi

Moses Griffith

Moses Griffith, topographer, draftsman, watercolourist and engraver, spent his life in the service of Thomas Pennant, antiquarian and amateur naturalist; although engaged as a servant, he was employed by Pennant as a full time artist from 1771.

1 portrait in the collection

Lindy Morrison

Recorded 2021

François Jacques Dequevauvillier

François Jacques Dequevauviller was the son of the French engraver Nicolas-Barthelemy François Dequevauviller (1745–1807).

1 portrait in the collection

Wesley Enoch AM

Wesley Enoch AM (b. 1969) is a theatre director and playwright and was the director of the Sydney Festival from 2017 to 2021.

1 portrait in the collection

Bessie Gibson

Bessie Gibson (1868-1961), like Harold Parker, studied under Godfrey Rivers at the Brisbane Central Technical College, where she developed an interest in miniature painting.

1 portrait in the collection

Amandus Julius Fischer

Amandus Julius Fischer (1859-1948) began his art studies in Sydney before proceeding to the Westminster School of art in London, and the Académie Julian and the Atelier Colarossi in Paris.

1 portrait in the collection

William King

William Francis King (1807-1873), aka 'The Flying Pieman', accomplished a series of bizarre athletic feats during the 1840s.

1 portrait in the collection

Betty Churcher AO

(Elizabeth) Betty Churcher AO (1931–2015), gallery director, author, painter and lecturer, was educated in Brisbane before studying at the Royal College of Art in London.

3 portraits in the collection

Dave

Jay Hynes

John T. Barber

John Thomas Barber, army officer, insurer, miniaturist and philanthropist, took the additional name of Beaumont in 1812.

1 portrait 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

Danny Morseu

The basketballer Danny Morseu (b. 1958) was born on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait.

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

Eleanor Wingate

Previous exhibition, 2001

Eleanor Wingate (née Rouse, 1813–1898) was the second youngest daughter of colonial public servant and landowner Richard Rouse (1774–1852) and his wife Elizabeth (née Adams, 1772–1849), who’d come to Sydney as free settlers in 1801.

1 portrait in the collection

William Yang

Australian Chinese

William Yang's art is about the telling of stories, his work is an intriguing mixture of philosophy, autobiography, social history and documentary imbued with a sense of the artist's own curiosity, humanity and humour

Noel Stapleton

Captain Moonlite et al on trial for murder

Noel Stapleton (1927-2017) commercial artist, began his career in Brisbane in 1944.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Diseased curiosity

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

Bruce Postle

Bruce Postle began his photojournalism career at Queensland Country Life and the Brisbane Courier Mail.

6 portraits in the collection

Cactus World, Lester Meyers, 2014

by Man Tsun Cheung

Eleanor Wingate (née Rouse), c. 1850

Portrait, hand coloured photograph

Gift of Pamela Glasson 2009
Collected by Leila Haigh (nee Rouse)

Thea Astley

Thea Astley (1925-2004), novelist, was born in Brisbane and studied arts at the University of Queensland before becoming a teacher.

1 portrait in the collection

Francis (Pat) Quinn

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

2 portraits in the collection

Charles Ulm

Charles Ulm (1898-1934) began work as a clerk in a stockbroking office after he left school, but enlisted under a false identity in the 1st Battalion of the AIF just before his 16th birthday.

2 portraits in the collection

Fiona Foley

Fiona Foley (b.1964), Badtjala artist, activist, curator and writer, grew up on Fraser Island and in nearby Hervey Bay before moving south to study art at the East Sydney Technical College.

2 portraits in the collection

George Mealmaker

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

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

1 portrait in the collection

Oz Rock

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on resin-coated paper

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.

Danny Morseu, 2005

Sahlan Hayes

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2006

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

Dinny Nolan Tjampitjinpa and Paddy Carrol Tjungarrayi – Papunya

Paddy Carroll Tjugarrayi

Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi (c. 1932–2002) is a Warlpiri artist who was born in Yarrungkanyi in the Western Desert.

1 portrait in the collection

The Saints, 1978 (printed 2018)

Gary Ede

Purchased with funds provided by Wayne Williams 2018

William Robinson AO

William Robinson AO (b. 1936) is one of Australia's most distinguished and influential contemporary painters, known for his distinctive and prolific output as landscape painter in particular.

3 portraits in the collection

Tom Glover

English-born Thomas Ellis Glover moved to New Zealand as a child and by his early twenties was working as a cartoonist, court reporter and journalist.

10 portraits in the collection

Neville and Jill Wran - as the Duke and Duchess of Sydney (with apologies to Piero della Francesca)

Jill Hickson Wran AM

Jill Hickson Wran AM (b. 1948) graduated from the University of Sydney and then worked for Qantas.

1 portrait in the collection

Leah King-Smith

Contributing artists

Born: 1957, Gympie, QLD
Works: Brisbane

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

N Schiavonetti

Luigi Schiavonetti, Italian reproductive engraver and etcher, studied art for several years before being employed by an engraver named Testolini to execute imitations of Bartolozzi's works, which Testolini passed off as his own.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir James Hardy OBE

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

Sir James Hardy OBE (1932-2023) was a wine industry executive, yachtsman and community leader.

1 portrait in the collection

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.

William St. Leonards Robertson, c. 1869

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

Kristin Headlam

Kristin Headlam, born in Launceston, completed a BA at the University of Melbourne in the 1970s and studied painting at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1980-1981.

2 portraits in the collection

Lloyd Rees, 1973

Robert Walker

Purchased 1999

HRH Prince Alfred

Portrait, direct positive colour photograph

Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (1844–1900) was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria.

4 portraits in the collection

Lloyd Rees, 1970

Anthony Browell

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 1999

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?

Carol McGregor

Contributing artists

Born: 1961, Hastings, New Zealand
Works: Brisbane

Thea Astley, 1985 (printed 2006)

Jozef Vissel

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2006

Portrait 60

Spring 2018

Ralph Heimans on his portraits, and features on Louis Kahan, Helena Rubinstein, Judy Cassab and Tasmanian convicts.

Esther Erlich

Esther Erlich (b. 1955), a Melbourne-based painter, has been exhibiting since the early 1980s, often with the Libby Edwards Galleries in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and the Barry Newton Gallery in Adelaide.

3 portraits in the collection

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.

Peter Porter OAM

Peter Porter OAM (1929-2010), poet and critic, moved from Brisbane to London in 1951 at age 22.

2 portraits in the collection

Tom Hughes AO KC

Hon Thomas Hughes AO KC (b. 1923), lawyer and former politician, was born in Sydney and educated at Riverview before serving in the RAAF during World War 2.

3 portraits 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

Mia Boe

Artists and Collectives

Mia Boe is a Narrm/Melbourne-based artist known for her haunting and evocative painting practice, informed by her Butchulla and Burmese ancestry.

Sir James Balderstone

Sir James Balderstone (1921-2014) was chairman of BHP from 1984 to 1989.

1 portrait in the collection

Aaron Woodcock

Aaron 'Tommy' Woodcock (1905-1985), horse strapper and trainer, was the son of a Cobb and Co driver and expressed his affinity with horses from an early age.

1 portrait 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.

Ethel Anderson and her daughter, Bethia, c. 1912

G.W. Lawrie

Gift of Mrs SM Asplin 2011

Lloyd Rees AC CMG

Lloyd Rees AC CMG (1895–1988), artist and teacher, studied art in Brisbane from 1910 to 1916, and in England and Europe in the early 1920s.

12 portraits in the collection

Li Cunxin, 2017–2018

by Jun Chen

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2018

Henry Wade

Sir Leslie Ward, Vanity Fair Magazine

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

a Traveller (2nd Baron Lamington), 1892

Purchased 2015

John Hinde

John Hinde AM (1911-2006), film reviewer and reporter, had a couple of false starts in journalism before being hired by the ABC's news and current affairs department in 1939.

1 portrait in the collection

A couple of million words: Humphrey McQueen, 2008

by Karen Donnelly

Fred Schepisi AO

Fred Schepisi AO (b. 1939), film producer and director, briefly trained to be a priest before working in advertising.

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

Sir James Hardy, c. 1975 (printed 2002)

Lewis Morley

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

Fiona Foley in her studio at Hervey Bay, 1994

Previous exhibition, 2013

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

Australian racing legends and best friends

Devotion

The mane thing is trust

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.

Lloyd Rees, c. 1988

Lewis Morley

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

Literary lovers’ life liaison

Lust

Desire drives forbidden love

Sir Eugene Goossens

Sir (Aynsley) Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) was an English conductor, composer and violinist.

2 portraits in the collection

Gladys Hope Marks

Gladys Hope Marks (1883–1970), university lecturer and women's rights activist, was born in Brisbane.

1 portrait in the collection

Achille Simonetti

Achilles Simonetti (1838-1900) was a sculptor. Born in Rome, the son of sculptor Louis Simonetti, he trained as a religious sculptor.

1 portrait in the collection

Scrapbook page featuring portraits of Fred Lowry and Frank Gardiner

Frederick Lowry

Fred Lowry (1836-1863) was a stockman before he turned to cattle and horse duffing.

1 portrait in the collection

James Heath

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

2 portraits in the collection

Leslie Bowles

Leslie Bowles (1885-1954), sculptor, was born in Sydney and began his studies in modelling and woodcarving at the Brisbane Technical College.

1 portrait in the collection

Sir Samuel Walter Griffith

Sir Samuel Walter Griffith (1845-1920), chief justice and premier, was born in Wales and came to Australia aged eight with his minister father and family.A top student, at the University of Sydney Griffith excelled at classics and mathematics; the Mort scholarship enabled him to travel to Europe.

1 portrait in the collection

Helen Grieve

Helen Grieve (1931–1981), child actress, was born in Sydney. Her first film role was in The Overlanders (1946), opposite Chips Rafferty.

1 portrait in the collection

R O'Hara Burke, c. 1861

De Gruchy & Leigh

Portrait, pencil on paper

Purchased 2009

Lord Casey, n.d.

Louis Kahan AO

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1998

Lloyd Rees at 90, Northwood, Sydney, 1985 (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

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

William John Pickett Bedford

Portrait, watercolour and gouache on paper

William John Pickett Bedford (1805–1869) was the eldest of three children of Anglican clergyman, William Bedford (1781–1852), and his wife, Eleanor, and came to Van Diemen’s Land with his family in 1823 following the appointment of his father to a chaplaincy in the colony.

1 portrait in the collection

Theresa and James Laidley Mort, 1844

William Nicholas

Gift of the Mort family 2009

Lloyd Rees, 1987

Michel Lawrence

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 1999

Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie

Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington (1860–1940) had served four years in the House of Commons before being appointed governor of Queensland in October 1895.

1 portrait in the collection

Robyn Davidson (Hamelin Pool, Indian Ocean, Western Australia), 1977 (printed 2014)

Rick Smolan

Purchased 2014

William John Wills, c. 1861

De Gruchy & Leigh

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009

Dadang Christanto, 2005

Hari Ho

François Bonneville after Joseph Jauffret

Purchased 2007

Nicolas Baudin, Capitaine de Vaisseau. Commandant I'Expedition pour le tour du Monde et Specialement relatif aux Sciences et auz Arts, entreprise en I'An gme, 1800

Nicolas Baudin, Capitaine de Vaisseau. Commandant I'Expedition pour le tour du Monde et Specialement relatif aux Sciences et auz Arts, entreprise en I'An gme, 1800, 1800

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Tiga Bayles

Harold James Phillip 'Tiga' Bayles (1953–2016), a Birri Gubba Gungalu man, was a broadcaster and Aboriginal rights activist.

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

Fred Schepisi, c. 2000

Kate Gollings

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2004

Charles Darwin

John Collier

Eugene Goossens, c. 1954

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

Who is Lillie Roberts?

Devotion

Talented wife for a talented husband

Elizabeth Sarah Ellen Carter

A Portrait of Colonial Australia

Elizabeth Sarah Ellen Carter (née Hill, 1845-1927) was one of the eight children born to Sydney cabinetmaker and undertaker John Hill jnr and his wife Elizabeth - the step-daughter of ex-convict boatman, John Cadman.

1 portrait in the collection

Bungaree, late chief of the Broken Bay tribe, Sydney

Heads of the People

Previous exhibition, 2000

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

John Schaeffer AO - art collector and philanthropist

John Schaeffer AO - art collector and philanthropist, 2014

Evert Ploeg

Purchased with funds provided by Harold Mitchell AC

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

Charles Hewitt

Born in Lincolnshire, Charles Hewitt (1837–1912) had begun working in Melbourne by 1860 and was one of the founding members of the Photographic Society of Victoria.

3 portraits in the collection

Walala Tjapaltjarri

Walala Tjapaltjarri (c. 1965–1975) and his family shot to fame in 1984 when they left their nomadic desert life and joined family in the community of Kiwirrkura in Western Australia.

1 portrait in the collection

Phyllis Shillito

Phyllis Shillito (1895-1980), designer and teacher, grew up in Yorkshire and trained and taught at Halifax Technical School before moving to teach design, craft and principles of art at Winchester School of Art and Liverpool City School of Art.

1 portrait in the collection

Mr and Mrs Case, 1864

Alexander Fox and Co

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Barbara Blackman, c. 1953

Gift of Barbara Blackman 2004

Portrait of Florence Broadhurst, 1968

Joshua Smith

Portrait, pencil on paper

Purchased 2007

David Malouf, 1980

Jeffrey Smart AO

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

Elizabeth Barden

Elizabeth Barden (b. 1965) grew up in Brisbane and gained a diploma in art teaching from Queensland University of Technology in 1985.

1 portrait in the collection

Billy Slater

Billy Slater (b. 1983), rugby league footballer, has played for Melbourne Storm since the beginning of his career in 2003.

1 portrait in the collection

Nicholas Baudin

Nicolas Thomas Baudin (1754–1803), cartographic surveyor and naturalist, was sent by the French government to survey the coast of Australia in 1800.

1 portrait in the collection

Mrs Bonney flying from Australia to South Africa via Siam. Singapore 1937 (full length portrait)

Maude Rose Bonney AM MBE

Maude Rose ‘Lores’ Bonney MBE AM (1897-1994), aviatrix, grew up in Melbourne and attended a German finishing school before marrying a Queensland leather-goods manufacturer in 1917.

2 portraits in the collection

Head of H.C. Coombs, c. 1972 (cast 2018)

Norma Redpath

Portrait, bronze

Purchased 2018

Dadang Christanto

Dadang Christanto (b. 1957), artist, was born into an Indonesian family of Chinese descent in Tegal, a small village in Central Java, Indonesia.

1 portrait in the collection

Nam Le, 2010

Rozalind Drummond

Purchased 2010

Nam Le

Nam Le (b. 1978), writer, came to Australia as a baby with his Vietnamese refugee parents.

1 portrait in the collection

Queenie McKenzie Nakara

Queenie McKenzie (c. 1930–1998) was a prominent Gija artist in the East Kimberley painting movement.

1 portrait in the collection

Arthur T. Woodward

Arthur Thomas 'A T' Woodward (1865–1943), painter and art scholar, was born in Birmingham, England.

1 portrait in the collection

Barry Gibb

Barry Gibb (b. 1946) and twins Robin (b. 1949) and Maurice Gibb (1949-2003), were the brothers comprising the band The Bee Gees.

1 portrait in the collection

Frederick Cato, 1932

W B McInnes

Gift in memory of Frederick John Cato Kumm 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

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

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

Mary Neville, Lady Dacre and Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre

Hans Eworth

Eugene Goossens, c. 1954

Portrait, charcoal on paper

Gift of Danina Dupain Anderson 2017. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Untitled (portrait of Barbara Blackman), 1976

Charles Blackman OBE

Purchased 2009

Sir Joseph Banks, 1802

William Ridley

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

Of Pansy, plastiques and prudes

Lust

Near-naked subversion

Lloyd Rees full face, 1979

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

Lloyd Rees from behind, 1979

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

John Hillcoat

John Hillcoat (b. 1960), filmmaker, was born in Brisbane and grew up in Canada, the USA and Europe.

1 portrait in the collection

To coin a (farewell) phrase

Devotion

A penny for their thoughts

Li Cunxin AO

Li Cunxin AO (b. 1961) is the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet.

1 portrait in the collection

Bob Barnard AM

Bob Barnard AM (1933-2022), jazz cornettist, grew up in a Melbourne musical family and started on cornet with a local brass band at the age of 12.

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

Martha Mary Robertson, 1866

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

Andrew Sibley

Andrew Sibley (1933–2015), painter and teacher, is known for his figurative paintings, landscapes and abstract works.

20 portraits in the collection

Anthony Mundine, 1992 (printed 2008)

Mervyn Bishop

Purchased 2008

Charles Blondin, 1874

Timothy Noble

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Immediately, there was a crackle

It's Complicated

A meeting of minds

Mrs Bonney flying from Australia to South Africa via Siam. Singapore 1937 (in her aeroplane,

Mrs Bonney flying from Australia to South Africa via Siam. Singapore 1937 (in her aeroplane, "My Little Ship II), 1937

Portrait, carbon print on paper

Purchased 2012

Mrs Bonney flying from Australia to South Africa via Siam. Singapore 1937 (full length portrait), 1937

Portrait, carbon print on paper

Purchased 2012

George Miller, 2002 (printed 2004)

Karin Catt

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

Hon Joh Bjelke-Petersen KCMG

Hon Joh Bjelke-Petersen KCMG, longest-serving Premier of Queensland from 1968 until 1987 was born in New Zealand in 1911.

1 portrait in the collection

Lindy Lee, 2003

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

Piper, the native who accompanied Major Mitchell in his expedition to the interior of N.S.W.

Piper, the native who accompanied Major Mitchell in his expedition to the interior of N.S.W., 1836

William Fernyhough

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

Bernard King

Portrait, cast metal with gold finish

Bernard King (1934–2002), chef and television personality, grew up on a farm at Maleny in Queensland and appeared in his first talent quest at the age of eight.

1 portrait in the collection

Bert Hinkler, 1930s

Nison Tregor

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Alan Foulkes in memory of Mark Graham Cleghorn 2012

Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, 2014

Sam Leach

Portrait, oil and resin on plywood

Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2014

Peter Hudson

Peter Hudson (b. 1950), is a landscape and portrait painter who lives and works in Maleny, Queensland.

5 portraits in the collection

June Dally-Watkins, 1949 (printed 2008)

Purchased 2008

Sir Henry Wylie Norman

Portrait, gilcée print on paper

Sir Henry Wylie Norman (1826–1904), governor and army officer, was born in London, the son of a merchant who conducted his business chiefly in India and the Caribbean.

1 portrait in the collection

Smalltown Boy (Surfers Paradise), 2018

The Huxleys

Purchased 2021

Smalltown Boy (Perth), 2018

The Huxleys

Portrait, gilcée print on paper

Purchased 2021

Paul Kelly, 2007

Gift of the artist 2012

Robyn Davidson

Robyn Davidson (b. 1950), writer, attended a Brisbane boarding school before moving to Sydney, where she lived a loosely bohemian lifestyle.

2 portraits in the collection

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

Marian Drew

Brisbane-based Marian Drew (b. 1960) is a photographic artist and Adjunct Associate Professor in Photography at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.

1 portrait in the collection

Lindy Lee AO

Lindy Lee AO (b. 1954) is one of Australia's foremost contemporary artists.

2 portraits in the collection

Wesley Stacey

Portrait, synthetic polymer paint and permanent marker on canvas

Wesley Stacey (1941–2023), photographer, was an apprentice silk screener and studied drawing and design at East Sydney Technical College in the early 1960s before working as a graphic designer and photographer in Sydney and London.

3 portraits in the collection

Peter Porter, 2004

Tony Clark

Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004

Thomas Archbold, Durham, 1826 by John Dempsey

Street fare

The late Georgian and early Victorian working classes often bought their food in ale-houses, chop-houses and ‘penny pie shops’, or purchased their meals day after day in the streets.

Tracey Moffatt, 1995

Portrait, charcoal on paper

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

Girl (portrait of Barbara Blackman), 1969

Charles Blackman OBE

Purchased 2009

Paul Kelly, 2004

Jon Campbell

Portrait, synthetic polymer and enamel paint on canvas

Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004

Neville and Jill Wran - as the Duke and Duchess of Sydney (with apologies to Piero della Francesca), 1983

Frank Hodgkinson

Portrait, oil on canvas (diptych)

Gift of Mrs Kate Hodgkinson 1999. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Sir Richard Owens

Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892), naturalist, anatomist and palaeontologist, was born in Lancaster and apprenticed to surgeon-apothecaries there before completing his studies in medicine in Edinburgh and London.

1 portrait in the collection

Anthony Mundine

Previous exhibition, 2002

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

Headspace 3

Being Me

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

Quentin Bryce, 2016

Michael Zavros

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2016

Robert Kermode, c. 1840

Purchased 2008. The original frame for this work was donated to the National Portrait Gallery of Australia by the National Gallery of Victoria 2009.

Martha Kermode, c. 1840

Purchased 2008. The original frame for this work was donated to the National Portrait Gallery of Australia by the National Gallery of Victoria 2009.

Henry Wade, c. 1841

Portrait, oil on paperboard

Gift of the Wade and Hannah families 2013

Nancy Bird Walton - Pioneer, 2003

Danelle Bergstrom

Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2004

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

A & G Taylor

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2013

George Fetting

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

8 portraits in the collection

Tracey Moffatt dreaming, 2017

James Horan

Gift of the artist 2019

Lady Mary Hay

Lady Hay, née Chalmers (c. 1806-1892) was reported at the time of her death to have been about ten years older than Hay.

1 portrait in the collection

Noel McKenna

NPPP 2012 learning resource

Noel McKenna (b. 1956), artist, is best known for his spare linear style and paintings of everyday scenarios, often featuring animals and interiors.

2 portraits in the collection

Anthony Anderton

An interview with the photographer.

Sir Edward Holden, 1945

Leslie Bowles

Portrait, cast bronze on granite base

Bequest of John J Holden 2005

Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe, 2018

Shirley Purdie

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

Purchased 2019

Ethel Anderson

Ethel Anderson (née Mason, 1883-1958), writer and artist, was an important figure in the Sydney modern art scene of the 1920s and 30s.

2 portraits in the collection

Mick Molloy, 2009

Andrew Maccoll

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2009

David Malouf

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on cardboard

David Malouf (b.1934), educated at Brisbane Grammar and the University of Queensland, left Australia at the age of 24 and remained abroad for a decade, teaching in England and travelling throughout Europe.

3 portraits in the collection

Portrait of Brian Dunlop, c. 1972

Bryan Westwood

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE 2006
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

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

After Ophelia: Fiona Foley at Lake Mackenzie, Fraser Island (Referencing Ophelia by John Everett Millais), 1994

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Leisel Jones OAM

an unknown artist after Sir Joshua Reynolds

Leisel Jones OAM (b. 1985) is the first Australian swimmer to have competed at four Olympic Games and is one of world swimming's greatest ever breaststroke competitors.

2 portraits in the collection

Portrait of Dr John Hawkesworth, c. 1770

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by the Liangis family 2018

Stephen and Russell Page, 1993 (printed 2011)

Robert Rosen

Gift of Robert Rosen 2012

Brian Dunlop

Brian Dunlop studied at East Sydney Technical College and won the Le Gay Brereton Prize for Drawing while still a student.

7 portraits in the collection

John Shine AO

Professor John Shine AC (b. 1946), biochemist and philanthropist, was born in Brisbane and completed his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at the Australian National University in Canberra in the 1970s.

1 portrait 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

Mr King (Bernard King), c. 1979

Jon Waddy

Portrait, colour transparency on lightbox

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005

Marilyn Darling AC, 2010

Anne Zahalka

Commissioned with funds provided by Tim Fairfax AC 2010

Davida Allen

Going around a gallery with a child, we point to a painting of a dog and brightly ask ‘What’s that?’ If they don’t say ‘A dog’, we tell them that’s what it is. We don’t say it’s a shape inscribed by an artist that’s popularly understood to signify a dog. That’d only serve to foster a smarty-pants.

Tim Fairfax, 2018

by Russell Shakespeare

Portrait, synthetic polymer paint on canvas

Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018

Neil Perry, 1997

Selina Snow

Gift of the artist 1999

Lloyd Rees - Laughing, 1975

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

Lloyd Rees - portrait, 1983

Previous exhibition, 2017

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

Collection in focus: Brook Andrew

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

Portrait of Henry Kendall, c. 1890-1894

S. Milbourn Jnr

Portrait, albumen silver photograph on cabinet card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008

Lindy Lee, 1995

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

Wilfred John Peisley

Wilfrid John Peisley, born in Bathurst, won a number of prizes at regional shows before gaining a scholarship to the East Sydney Technical College at the age of seventeen.

1 portrait in the collection

Barbara Blackman, 2008

Gorgi Dimcevski

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Barbara Blackman 2009

Leisel Jones, 2015 (printed 2021)

Purchased with funds provided by the Annual Appeal for Contemporary Australian Photography 2021

Portrait of the Seventh Earl of Hopetoun, the Rt Hon. John Hope

Rt Hon John Adrian Louis Hope KT GCMG GCVO PC

Rt Hon John Adrian Louis Hope KT GCMG GCVO PC, 7th Earl of Hopetoun (1860–1908) was the first governor general of Australia.

3 portraits in the collection

Gwyn Hannsen Pigott

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott AM (1935–2013) was a self-described potter, whose international reputation was built on her exquisite still-life assemblages of refined, spare vessels in subtle colours and shapes.

1 portrait in the collection

Margaret Dodd, 2002

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

June Dally-Watkins OAM

June Dally-Watkins OAM (1927–2020), model, deportment icon and entrepreneur, grew up on a property at Watsons Creek in the New England district of New South Wales.

3 portraits in the collection

Lloyd Rees - silhouette, 1983

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

Lloyd Rees - Brushes, 1983

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

Tim Fairfax AC, 2018

Russell Shakespeare

Commissioned with funds provided by The Calvert-Jones Foundation 2018

Kym Bonython

Hugh Reskymer 'Kym' Bonython AC DFC AFC (1920-2011), company director, art dealer, jazz authority, music promoter and speedway entrepreneur, was one of the most significant collectors and dealers of contemporary Australian art in the post-war period.

2 portraits in the collection

Mitch Cairns

Previous exhibition, 2023

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

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2023

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

The Movie Star (David Gulpilil), 1985

Tracey Moffatt

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

Lionel Fogarty

Lionel Fogarty (b. 1958), Yugambeh/Kudjela poet and activist, was born at Barambah, the Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve, near Murgon, Queensland.

1 portrait in the collection

TJ Smith and Tulloch, 1960 (printed 2003)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

George Gregan, 1999 (printed 2001)

Purchased 2001

Tracey, 1986 (printed 2013)

Michael Riley

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Purchased 2013

The Bee Gees, Kings Cross, 1970-1971

Rennie Ellis

Purchased 2021

Frederick Cato

Frederick Cato (1858-1935), grocer and philanthropist, was born in a tent at Pleasant Creek (Stawell), to the Scottish wife of an English gold miner.

1 portrait in the collection

Cressida Campbell AM

Cressida Campbell AM (b. 1960), artist, has worked for decades in a studio at her home in Bronte, Sydney.

2 portraits in the collection

Marcia Langton, 1982

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Purchased 2004

Barbara Blackman AO

Barbara Blackman AO (b. 1928), writer, poet and arts patron, was only fifteen when the ABC Weekly published one of her poems.

5 portraits in the collection

Bart Willoughby, c. 2000

Penny Tweedie

Gift of the artist 2004

William Robinson

Unique in the world, perhaps, is a bronze sculpture that fuses the age-old human portrait bronze tradition, and the later genre of the bronze pug figurine: that’d be William Robinson’s Self-portrait with pug.

David Malouf, 2012

Rick Amor

Commissioned with the assistance of funds provided by the Circle of Friends 2012

Tracey Moffatt

Tracey Moffatt AO (b. 1960) is an artist whose work reflects on issues including race, childhood trauma, gender and popular culture.

8 portraits in the collection

Sigrid Thornton AO

Sigrid Thornton AO (b. 1959), actor, has been a household name since her performance in the box-office hit The Man from Snowy River in 1981.

1 portrait in the collection

Captain William Kinghorne

Previous exhibition, 2009

William Kinghorne (1796-1878) came to the colonies from Scotland some time before 1824.

1 portrait 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.

Aldershot Cavalry (Major General Reginald Talbot)

Hon. Sir Reginald Talbot KCB

The Hon Sir Reginald Talbot KCB (1841-1929), army officer and English MP, was governor of Victoria from April 1904 to July 1908.

1 portrait in the collection

Henry Kendall

Henry (Thomas Henry) Kendall (1839-1882) was once regarded as the finest poet Australia had produced.

1 portrait in the collection

Kerry Stokes AC

Kerry Stokes AC (b. 1940), businessman and philanthropist, was born John Patrick Alford in Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

Professor John Shine, 2011

Jozef Vissel

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Jozef Vissel 2015

Tommy Woodcock and Reckless, 1977 (printed 2010)

Bruce Postle

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by James Bain AM and Janette Bain 2010

Douglas Annand

Douglas Annand (1903–1976), graphic designer and artist, moved to Sydney from Brisbane in 1930.

2 portraits in the collection

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

Queenie McKenzie Nakara, 1997

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

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

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

Deborah Paauwe

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on dibond

Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2008

Tony Shaw, 2018

Sarah Rhodes

Commissioned with funds from the Patrick Corrigan Portrait Commission Series 2018

Tracey Moffatt, 1995

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

Marcia Langton, 2013

Purchased 2015

Tom Durkin

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

Harold Blair AO

Harold Blair AO (1924–1976), singer and Indigenous advocate, spent his youth on the Purga Mission, and began singing in local concerts on the canefields in the Childers area.

1 portrait in the collection

Nancy Bird Walton, c. 1973

Judy Cassab AO CBE

Gift of Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE 2008. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Glenn McGrath AM

Brook Andrew, Larry Rawling

Glenn McGrath AM (b. 1970), philanthropist and former Test cricketer, is one of international cricket's greatest ever fast bowlers.

1 portrait in the collection

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.

Dichotomia, Barry Otto, 2008

Gift of the artist 2010

Michael Zavros

Portrait, inkjet print (black and white) on paper

Michael Zavros (b. 1974) graduated from Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1996.

2 portraits in the collection

Robyn Davidson (near Uluru), 1979 (printed 2014)

Rick Smolan

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Husbands and Wives

Photographic Portraits from 19th Century Australia

Previous exhibition, 2010

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

Ali Cobby Eckermann and Lionel Fogarty at the Hawkesbury River, 2014

Purchased 2015

Piper, the native who accompanied Major Mitchell in his expedition to the interior

Piper, the native who accompanied Major Mitchell in his expedition to the interior, c. 1836

William Fernyhough

Portrait, cast plaster, patinated

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

Captain Ulm, 1932

Enid Fleming

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the Sydney Airports Corporation 2001

Sarah-Jane Clarke AM

Sarah-Jane 'Sass' Clarke AM (b. 1974) and Heidi 'Bide' Middleton AM (b.

1 portrait in the collection

Heidi Middleton

Portrait, synthetic polymer paint on canvas board

Heidi 'Bide' Middleton AM (b. 1971) and Sarah-Jane 'Sass' Clarke AM (b.

1 portrait in the collection

JOH (The Hon Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen), c. 1987

Noel Stapleton

Purchased with funds provided by the Basil Bressler Bequest 2003

Jacob Nash, 2017

Ingvar Kenne

Gift of the artist 2020. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

William Barak

Walala Tjapaltjarri, 2009

Portrait, inkjet print on cotton rag paper

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

Maurice Felton

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

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

Brian Croser AO, 1998

Kate Gollings

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2001

Akira Isogawa, 2003 (printed 2005)

Ingvar Kenne

Portrait, conté, brush and ink on paper

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

Lord Casey, c. 1932

Charles Wheeler

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2003

Harold Blair, 1948

Ernest Buckmaster

Purchased 2010

Leah Purcell, c. 2000

Penny Tweedie

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2004

Dr G Yunupingu

Magazine article, 2017

Dr G Yunupingu (1970-2017), a man of the Gumatj clan of north-east Arnhem Land, learned to play guitar, keyboard, drums and didgeridoo as a child.

Rodney Hall OAM

Rodney Hall OAM (b. 1935), writer, came to Australia in 1947 and settled in Brisbane.

2 portraits in the collection

Wes Stacey, Kurnell, Sydney, 1973 (printed 2000)

David Moore

Richard Gardiner Casey KG GCMG CH

Richard Gardiner Casey, Baron Casey of Berwick, Victoria and the City of Westminster KG GCMG CH (1890-1976), politician and statesman, was born in Brisbane and educated in Melbourne and at Cambridge.

3 portraits in the collection

Jenny Howard

Jenny Howard née Daisy Blowes (1902-1996), stage performer, made her name in her native England as ‘the poor man’s Gracie Fields’, recording covers of Fields’s songs for a cut-price label and impersonating the star onstage.

1 portrait in the collection

Ian Fairweather

Ian Fairweather (1891-1974), painter, grew up in Scotland, where he trained as an army officer.

1 portrait in the collection

Garrett Huxley

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

3 portraits in the collection

Paula Dawson AM

Paula Dawson AM (b. 1954), artist and university lecturer, is an internationally recognised pioneer in the field of holography.

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

Michael Riley

Michael Riley (1960–2004), a Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi photographer, filmmaker and video-artist, was one of Australia's most influential Aboriginal contemporary artists.

15 portraits in the collection

Stephen Page AO

Stephen Page AO (b. 1965), Nunukul dancer and choreographer, has been artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre since 1991.

2 portraits in the collection

Heather McKay AO MBE

Heather McKay AO MBE (b. 1941), squash champion, dominated the game worldwide for sixteen years and was the first to be inducted into the Women's International Squash Players Association Hall of Fame.

1 portrait in the collection

Wesley Enoch and David McAllister, 2020

Portrait photography by John Elliott

Purchased with funds provided by Alan Dodge AM and Neil Archibald 2021

Thousand Mile Stare

Previous exhibition, 2004

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

Dave Tice

Dave Tice (b. 1950) was the lead singer for the trailblazing Australian hard rock band Buffalo.

1 portrait in the collection

George Moore, 1957

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

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.

Cressida Campbell, 2001

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

Russell Page

Russell Page (1968–2002), choreographer, dancer and actor, was from the Nunukul (Noonuccal) people and the Munaldjali clan of the Yugambeh people of south-east Queensland.

4 portraits in the collection

Michelle Simmons AO

Michelle Simmons AO (b. 1967), 2018 Australian of the Year, is a pioneer in atomic electronics and quantum computing.

1 portrait in the collection

Mal Meninga, 2018

by Peter Hudson

Previous exhibition, 2023

Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Miriam Hyde AO OBE

Miriam Hyde AO OBE (1913-2005), composer, recitalist, teacher, examiner, poet, lecturer and writer of numerous articles for music journals, studied first with her mother and then with William Silver at the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide.

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

Tim Fairfax AC

Portrait, brush and ink, pen and ink, stencil cut-out with watercolour highlights on paper

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

MacKenzie family silhouette, 1846

Samuel Metford

Gift of the Estate of Nancy Wiseman 2007

Making Portraits

Five Years of National Portrait Gallery Commissions

Previous exhibition, 2004

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

Matt Moran, 2004

Murray Fredericks, Lisa Giles

Gift of the artists 2005

Dave Tice, 1978 (printed 2018)

Gary Ede

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2007

Purchased 2018

All there in black and white

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.

Robert, Lindy, Grant, 1981

Jenny Watson

Portrait, oil on canvas board (triptych)

Purchased 2002

Dr Arthur Martin a'Beckett

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Dr Arthur Martin a’Beckett FRCS (1812-1871) surgeon and New South Wales parliamentarian studied at London University from 1831 before undertaking a residency in Paris, centre for innovation in the practice of hygiene, pathological anatomy and physiopathology.

2 portraits in the collection

Howard Taylor, 1988 (printed 2001)

John Austin

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Howard Taylor, 1988 (printed 2001)

John Austin

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph, selenium toned on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

A Path of Focus: Portrait of Cate and Bronte Campbell

Bronte 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

Cate Campbell OAM

1 portrait in the collection

Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE

Portrait, oil and oil pastel on canvas

Nancy Bird Walton AO OBE (1915–2009), aviatrix, decided she wanted to be a pilot when, at age eight, she saw a plane make an emergency landing on a beach near her home.

2 portraits in the collection

Lloyd Rees at the Rock in 1975, 1984

Roderick Shaw

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Karl Robert, Count Nesselrode, 1818 by Sir Thomas Lawrence

The Lawrence lustre

Magazine article by Angus Trumble, 2019

Angus Trumble salutes the glorious portraiture of Sir Thomas Lawrence.

Self portrait, 2002

Barry Humphries

Gift of the Margaret Olley Art Trust 2003

John Bradfield

John Bradfield (1867-1943), engineer, was a key figure in the development of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and inner city transport network.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Ben Quilty

Ben Quilty (b. 1973), painter, gained bachelor’s degrees in painting and visual communication at Sydney College of the Arts and the University of Western Sydney.

1 portrait in the collection

Mal Meninga AM

Malcolm (Mal) Meninga AM (b. 1960) is one of Australia’s most lauded rugby league players.

2 portraits in the collection

Angus Trumble

Angus Trumble (1964-2022) was born and raised in Melbourne. He studied Fine Arts and History at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1986.

The Bee Gees

Known as the 'Kings of Disco', The Bee Gees have sold over 120 million records worldwide and are among the highest-selling musical artists in history.

1 portrait in the collection

John Piper

Portrait, tempera on masonite

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

The chase, 1952

Charles Blackman OBE

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rob and Paula McLean 2011
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Dennis Lillee, 1977 (printed 2010)

Bruce Postle

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased with funds provided by James Bain AM and Janette Bain 2010

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt

Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (1813-c. 1848) went to school and university in Germany but the range of his interests was such that he never actually graduated (he was later called Dr Leichhardt in recognition of his broad scholarship).

1 portrait in the collection

Rick Amor

Previous exhibition, 2006

Rick Amor (b. 1948) is a Victorian-based painter, printmaker and sculptor.

27 portraits in the collection

Australian Visit

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

Big bouquet of Blackmans

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2013

Dr. Sarah Engledow explores the context surrounding Charles Blackman's portrait of Judith Wright, Jack McKinney and their daughter Meredith.

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Captain Charles Ulm, 1961

Sir William Dargie CBE

Previous exhibition, 2010

Gift of the Sydney Airports Corporation 2001

Australian of the Year

Inspiring a Nation

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

Ngayulu Minyma Tjanpinya, I am a Tjanpi Woman

Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM

Portrait, oil on canvas laid on composition board

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

Mal Meninga, 2018

Peter Hudson

Commissioned with funds provided by Maliganis Edwards Johnson and Alan Dodge AM 2018

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

So Fine

17 May 2018

Archived media releases 2018

The National Portrait Gallery is pleased to announce its winter exhibition is So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history. It will open to the public from 29 June 2018.

TW Edgeworth David and Vilhjalmur Stefansson

TW Edgeworth David and Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1924

Annie May Moore

Magazine article by Lauren Dalla, 2003

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

All you can eat

In February 2003 the National Portrait Gallery Circle of Friends brought Sir Robert Strong to Australia to present a series of lectures entitled The Artists & The Banquet- A History of Dining, which focused on the links between gardens and table decoration from the Renaissance to the Victorian Era.

David Strachan

Magazine article by David Solkin, 2019

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

Thomas Gainsborough, c.1758-59 by Thomas Gainsborough

Keep it in the family

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

Uncommon Australians

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

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.

Masters of Fare

Chefs, winemakers, providores

Previous exhibition, 2004

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.

Rick Amor

21 Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2014

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.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2018

Previous exhibition, 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.

Portrait of an English Woman c. 1532-5 (detail)

A new perspective

Magazine article by Celina Fox, 2006

An exhibition devoted to Hans Holbein's English commissions shows the portraitist bringing across the Channel new technical developments in art - with a dazzling facility.

John Connell

Previous exhibition, 2023

John Connell (c. 1759–1849), free settler, merchant and landowner, came to New South Wales aboard the Earl Cornwallis, which arrived in Sydney in June 1801.

1 portrait in the collection

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.

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.

The Hon. Bill Hayden AC

The Hon Bill Hayden AC (1933‒2023) was Governor-General of Australia from 1989 to 1996 and Leader of the Opposition from 1977 to 1983.

1 portrait in the collection

Kylie Tennant, early 1980s (printed 2018)

Jacqueline Mitelman

Magazine article by Sandy Nairne, 2006

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2018

Why do painted portraits still matter?

Lecture by Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, given at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra on 28 April 2006.

Mortimer Lewis

Mortimer Lewis (1796–1879), surveyor and architect, and his wife Elizabeth (née Clements, c.

1 portrait in the collection

Elizabeth Lewis

Australian Athletes in Focus

Mortimer Lewis (1796–1879), surveyor and architect, and his wife Elizabeth (née Clements, c.

1 portrait in the collection

Flash

Previous exhibition, 2006

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

So Fine

28 June 2018

Archived media releases 2018

Ten women artists explore the possibilities of portraiture as a contemporary art form; and reinterpret and reimagine Australian history in the Portrait Gallery’s new exhibition So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history.

Margaret Robertson, c. 1863

Batchelder & O'Neill

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2011

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

More cash than dash

Joanna Gilmour describes how colonial portraitists found the perfect market among social status seeking Sydneysiders.

Nicholas Harding

Nicholas Harding (1956–2022) was one of Australia's most highly regarded artists, known for his portraits and drawings, and his light-filled, vigorously painted images of the bush and the coast.

5 portraits in the collection

Hon Tom Hughes KC, 2001

Jiawei Shen

Commissioned with funds provided by Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull 2003

Bathing woman, Bridlington, c.1825 by John Dempsey

Allow me to introduce...

Previous exhibition, 2003

These full-length figures in watercolour, gouache and pencil date mostly from the 1820s, and almost all come from the collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart.

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

Barry Gibb, 1970-1971

Rennie Ellis

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2008

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2005

Facing Australia, Composite portrait: Facing St Lucia, 2003

Conflicting images

Michael Desmond reveals the origins of composite portraits and their evolution in the pursuit of the ideal.

Bob Jenyns

Robert ‘Bob’ Jenyns (1944-2015) grew up in Victoria and gained his diploma in art from the Caulfield Institute of Technology in 1964.

1 portrait in the collection

J.R. Vickery

Magazine article by Kim Appleby, 2002

James Richard Vickery OBE (1902-1997), food scientist, saw the field of his life’s research grow from non-existence to world recognition.

1 portrait in the collection

A self-portrait in focus

In her self-portrait, Tracey Moffatt presents herself as her work.

Fits of delicacy and despair

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2009

Henry Mundy's portraits flesh out notions of propriety and good taste in a convict colony.

Mrs Elizabeth Lewis, c. 1830

Portrait, watercolour on ivory

Gift of Leo Schofield AM 2002. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

First Ladies

Significant Australian Women 1913–2013

Previous exhibition, 2013

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

William P. Dowling

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2008

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

Black tie or wombat: How formal should I go?

Michael Desmond discusses the portrait of Senator Neville Bonner by Robert Campbell Jnr.

Lillie Langtry, c. 1885

W & D Downey

Portrait, carte de visite photograph on card

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

Dr J.R. Vickery, O.B.E., 1967

William Pidgeon

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the CSIRO Agriculture and Food Division 2017

Alfredo Esquillo Jr

by Patrick D. Flores

Artist essays

Born in Manila in 1972, Alfredo Esquillo Jr majored in painting at University of Santo Thomas.

Horatio S. Wills

Portraits in the Landscape

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

Open Air

Previous exhibition, 2008

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

The consolations of religion

A bushranger meets his maker, 6 January 1826

Previous exhibition, 2005

James McCabe provides proof that hanging wasn’t necessarily a fate reserved for the perpetrators of murder and other deeds of darkest hue.

Clifton Pugh

Australians

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.

Twenty new portraits marking Portrait Gallery’s twentieth birthday

21 August 2018

Archived media releases 2018

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.

So Fine

Contemporary women artists make Australian history

Previous exhibition, 2018

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.

Presenting… Shirley Purdie’s Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe

Wednesday 27 May 2020

Archived media releases 2020

The National Portrait Gallery this week launches an online exhibition of Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe to coincide with Reconciliation Week.

Nicholas Harding

28 Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2017

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.

Leigh Bowery, 1984

Robyn Beeche

Archibald McDonald, Henry Samuel Sadd

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

The Catholic Hierarchy of Australia, 1869

Portrait, steel engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

Matthew Burnett, c. 1865

Henry Samuel Sadd

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2015

Monument to Mrs. Moore St. Luke’s Church, Liverpool, Sydney

Waterloo and Mrs. Moore

Archived media releases 2013

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.

Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award media information

28 August 2013

The National Portrait Gallery recently announced the finalists for the Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award 2013.

Little treasures

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2002

The acquisition of the ivory miniatures of Mortimer and Mrs Lewis.

Georg von Neumayer, c. 1860

Johnstone & Co

Melbourne and Sydney Photographic Co

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

Untitled #21/09 (after Ricci, 1700; featuring Matthew Mitcham)

Untitled #21/09 (after Ricci, 1700; featuring Matthew Mitcham), 2009

Ross Watson

Portrait, oil on board

Gift of the artist 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Robert O'Hara Burke, c. 1860

Portrait, carte de visite photograph on card

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

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.

Joan Kerr, 2004

Peter Drewett

Portrait, pokerwork on spotted gum

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of James Semple Kerr 2004

The Tichborne Claimant (Arthur Orton), c. 1872

Maull & Co Photographers

Portrait, albumen silver carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

Speed demon

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2009

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

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.

Tony Shaw, 2018

by Sarah Rhodes

Commissioned with funds from the Patrick Corrigan Portrait Commission Series 2018

Hattie Shepparde, 1872

Bardwell's Royal Studio

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

Arnold Shore

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2002

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

A Meeting of Great Minds

The story behind Rick Amor's portrait of Professor Peter Doherty.

Sir Charles Nicholson

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2002

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

123 Faces

Magda Keaney examines the 123 Faces project by Simon Obarzanek.

Nicholas Chevalier, c. 1867

Magazine article by Krysia Kitch, 2016

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

Studio portrait of servicewoman Lance Corporal Kathleen Jean Mary (Kath) Walker, c.1942

Past present

Krysia Kitch celebrates Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Storied portrait

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2009

Emily Casey takes in Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait, Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe.

Duty bound

Joanna Gilmour explores the life of colonial women Lady Ellen Stirling, Eliza Darling, Lady Eliza Arthur, Elizabeth Macquarie and Lady Jane Franklin.

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

The champs

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2008

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

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.

Picture this...

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2003

This edited version of a speech by Andrew Sayers examines some of the antecedents of the National Portrait Gallery and set out the ideas behind the modern Gallery and its collection.

Melanie Faith Dove

Finalist interviews

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.

Powerful energy

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2010

Dr Christopher Chapman explores the symbolism in the portrait commission of Marcia Langton by Brook Andrew.

Michelle Simmons, 2018

by Selina Ou

Magazine article by Dimity Goldie, 2003

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

Portrait of a Modernist

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

Andrew Gaze, 2018

by George Fetting

Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018

Anna F. Walker

Anna Frances Walker (1830–1913), botanical artist and collector, was one of the thirteen children of Thomas Walker, a high-ranking colonial public servant, and his wife Anna Elizabeth, the daughter of merchant and landowner John Blaxland.

1 portrait in the collection

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

Forum participants

Magazine article by Sam Bowker, 2007

Biographies of participants in the Writing lives, revealing lives forum.

On active service

The National Portrait Gallery has acquired an evocative depiction of soldier Peter Cosgrove by the Victorian-based painter, printmaker and sculptor Rick Amor.

The bright-eyed Mariner

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2008

A new colonial portrait brings a zealous captain near.

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.

Scott Redford: Introducing
Reinhardt Dammn

Surfer artist rockstar

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2011

Christopher Chapman talks with Scott Redford about his character Reinhardt Dammn.

Pigeon coup

Magazine article by Christine Clark, 2006

Glenn McGrath makes a strong impact on the English batsmen and the walls of the National Portrait Gallery.

True fella

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2011

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

Alternative virtue

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

Joanna Gilmour presents John Kay’s portraits of a more infamous side of Edinburgh.

In a good paddock

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2011

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.

Reflections on portraiture

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2004

An extract from the 2004 Nuala O'Flaaherty Memorial Lecture at the Queen Victoria Musuem and Art Gallery in Launceston in which Andrew Sayers reflects on the unique qualities of a portrait gallery.

Journey into Headspace...

Magazine article by Katherine Russell, 2007

The theme for the National Portrait Gallery's eighth exhibition of student portraiture was The Journey.

Portrait of a patron

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2007

A new painting by Jiawei Shen captures the vision and resolve of the Gallery's founder, L. Gordon Darling AC CMG.

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.”

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.

References

Magazine article by Dr David Hansen, 2017

About the exhibition curator Claire Roberts, and writers Eugene Wang and Zhang Letian.

Gordon Darling Hall, National Portrait Gallery

Architecture

About us

Natural light and human proportions – the design by Johnson Pilton Walker

2023 Annual Appeal

Annual Appeal

In 2023 the Annual Appeal was focussed on a work by one of Australia's best loved and most successful portrait painters, Judy Cassab AO CBE, depicting model, entrepreneur and deportment icon, June Dally-Watkins OAM.

Mary (or Diana) Croker, mat woman, Colchester, 1823 by John Dempsey

Unknown drawer

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

Good, bad and the ugly

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2007

Michael Desmond explores what makes a portrait subject significant.

The Coronation Theatre, Westminster Abbey: A Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2012

Imagination

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2013

Dr Sarah Engledow tells the story of The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee portrait by Australian artist Ralph Heimans.

Promise Fulfilled

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

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

Inditchenous beestes of New Olland

Magazine article by Andrew Sayers AM, 2009

A remarkable undated drawing by Edward Lear (1812–88) blends natural history and whimsy.

In the round

Andrew Sayers outlines the highlights of the National Portrait Gallery's display of portrait sculpture.

The God-shaped hole

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

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

All dressed up

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2013

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

Rugby great a fine addition to Portrait Gallery Collection

21 March 2017

Archived media releases 2017

A portrait of Australian rugby great, Dr Mark Loane AM MBBS FRANZO FRACS, is the latest addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. The work is the final in a series of three commissioned portraits of Australian rugby luminaries funded by Gallery benefactor, Mr Patrick Corrigan AM.

Portrait Donors

Listed by year

Honour board

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.

Goollabal (Rainbow Serpent), 2018 by Shirley Purdie

Memories

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2016

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

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.

William Shakespeare, c. 1600-1610 associated with John Taylor

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.

Showing character

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2016

Joanna Gilmour on Tom Durkin playing with Melbourne's manhood.

The Conciliation, 1840 by Benjamin Duterrau

The art of conciliation

Magazine article by Gareth Knapman, 2017

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

Paper weight

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2022

Joanna Gilmour delves into a collection display that celebrates the immediacy and potency of drawing as an art form in its own right.

Sydney Cove medallion, 1789 by Josiah Wedgwood

The medallion

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.

200 Years of Portraiture

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2010

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

Subtle emotion

Christopher Chapman considers photographer Rozalind Drummond's portrait of author Nam Le.

Uncommon Australians

The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling

Magazine article by Barbara Blackman AO, 2003

Sarah Engledow writes about Gordon and Marilyn Darling and their support for the National Portrait Gallery throughout its evolution.

All in the Family

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.

Forest Creek, Mount Alexander Diggings, 1852 by S. T. Gill

The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 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.

Apollo's breath

Christopher Chapman delights in the intimacy of Robert Mapplethorpe's photography

Poets' Portraits

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2005

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.

Jose Legaspi

by Patrick D. Flores

Artist essays

Jose Legaspi was born in 1959 in Manila. He achieved degrees in zoology and biology before turning to fine arts in the mid-1980s.

M H Wednesday 11.15am from the series Self-harm, 2004

Big it up

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2005

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.

Support Crew

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2011

Portraits of philanthropists in the collection honour their contributions to Australia and acknowledge their support of the National Portrait Gallery.

Life class

Magazine article by Leonie Hellmers, 2004

Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.

Cover, first minute book of the Tasmanian Society of Natural History

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.

Little John of Colchester, a poor lunatic, c.1823 by John Dempsey

Dempsey's people

Magazine article by Michael Wardell, 2016

Those of you who are active in social media circles may be aware that through the past week I have unleashed a blitz on Facebook and Instagram in connection with our new winter exhibition Dempsey’s People: A Folio of British Street Portraits, 1824−1844.

ORA - Homesickness Project 2015 by Chrys Zantis

Food for thought

Michael Wardell on Chrys Zantis’ Ora.

Home truths

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2013

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.

Thousand mile stare

Magazine article by Simon Elliott, 2004

John Elliott talks about his photographic portrait practice, including his iconic image of Slim Dusty arm-in-arm with Dame Edna Everage.

Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly), 1885-86

Brothers on farms

Magazine article by Malcolm Robertson, 2011

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.

Hearts of Darkness

Magazine article by Magda Keaney, 2006

The National Portrait Gallery's acquisition of the portrait of Edward John Eyre by pioneering English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

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.

A real Pratt

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

The death of a gentlewoman is shrouded in mystery, a well-liked governor finds love after sorrow, and two upright men become entangled in the historical record.

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.

Top shot that

Magazine article by Gideon Haigh, 2009

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

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

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

School portraits

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2015

Inga Walton sheds light on a portraiture collection usually only seen by students and teachers at Melbourne University.

Regarding Henrys

Sarah Engledow ponders the divergent legacies of Messrs Kendall and Lawson.

Full time

Magazine article by Alistair McGhie, 2017

Alistair McGhie reminisces about three Australian rugby greats commissioned for the Portrait Gallery collection by Patrick Corrigan AM.

Skyhooks (Red Symons, Bob Starkie, Shirley Strachan, Greg Macainsh, Freddie Strauks) in Parker’s studio, Fitzroy, 1975 David Parker

Cool cool world

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2022

Penelope Grist unpacks photographs by David Parker, who captured the phenomenal emergence of the 1970s and 80s Melbourne music scene.

Vanity fair

Magazine article by Ashleigh Wadman, 2012

Ashleigh Wadman rediscovers the Australian characters represented with a kindly touch by the British portrait artist Leslie Ward for the society magazine Vanity Fair.

Arcadia: Sound of the sea

Exhibition introduction

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2009

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.

Donated duo

Dr Sarah Engledow writes about the gift of two striking paintings by the Australian artist Ken Done AM.

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.

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.

In the galleries

Magazine article by Dr Christopher Chapman, 2009

Christopher Chapman highlights the inaugural hang of the new National Portrait Gallery building which opened in December 2008.

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.

Sunset in the drawing room at Chesney Wold by Hablot Knight Brown

Portraiture in a Bleak House

Magazine article by Karen Vickery, 2016

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.

Diamond Doll

Karen Vickery delights in a thespian thread of the Australian yarn.

A Family Being Served with Tea, ca. 1745 by an unknown artist

A reflection on conversation pieces

Magazine article by Dr Grace Blakeley-Carroll, 2015

There is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, an English painting, datable on the basis of costume to about 1745, that has for many years exercised my imagination.

William Charles Wentworth -The Australian Patriot

The Wentworths – Hidden in Plain Sight

Grace Carroll on the gendered world of the Wentworths.

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.

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.

Profile of a marriage

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2006

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.

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.

Confessional conversations

The portraiture of Kristin Headlam

Magazine article by Fiona Gruber, 2015

Fiona Gruber investigates the work of Australian painter Kristin Headlam.

Australia’s great internationalists

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2016

Penelope Grist explores the United Nations stories in the Gallery’s collection.

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.

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.

Unbuttoning uniforms

Magazine article by Sharon Peoples, 2017

Sharon Peoples contemplates costumes and the construction of identity.

Costantini's convictions

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2017

Jo Gilmour uncovers endearing authenticity in the art of a twice-transported Tasmanian.

Robyn Sweaney

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2010

Robyn's parents had two terriers, Wuff and Snuff. In spite of Snuff’s ominous name and a couple of close shaves – once, he jumped out of a moving car, and another time, on a long road trip, he was accidentally left behind at a petrol station – he outlived Wuff.

You beauty

Joanna Gilmour explores the fact and fictions surrounding the legendary life of Irish-born dancer Lola Montez.

First-Class Marksman, 1946 by Sidney Nolan

Money for Myth

Magazine article by Jane Raffan, 2015

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

The Dissecting Room

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2015

Joanna Gilmour accounts for Australia’s deliciously ghoulish nineteenth century criminal portraiture.

Christmas Island

This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.

NPPP 2016 exhibition essay

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2018

Penny Grist, National Photographic Portrait Prize judge and curator, introduces the 2016 Prize.

History

About us

How the National Portrait Gallery and its unique collection came to be

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.

20/20 launch speech

Magazine article by Penelope Grist, 2015

Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

Getting bare

How seven portraits within Bare reveal in a public portrait parts of the body and elements of life usually located in the private sphere.

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.

Portrait of a Pioneer , 1917
Violet Teague

Off her own bat

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2022

Joanna Gilmour profiles Violet Teague, whose sophisticated works hid her originality and non-conformity in plain sight.

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.

Louise Lovely feeding gulls in a park, 1969 Unknown photographer

Jewelled nights

Magazine article by Dr Anne Sanders, 2017

Anne Sanders celebrates the cinematic union of two pioneering australian women.

An evening at Yarra Cottage, Port Stephens

Maria Caroline Brownrigg

Magazine article by Joanna Gilmour, 2013

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

The shipwright's arms

Joanna Gilmour explores the life and times of convict-turned-artist William Buelow Gould.

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.

Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits

Exhibition essay

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2016

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

Studio portrait of Lord Kitchener, British Secretary of State for War, 1914 by J Russell & Sons

All the way with K of K

Sarah Engledow bristles at the biographers’ neglect of Kitchener’s antipodean intervention.

A non-material and non-physical portrait

Lecture, 21 May 2011

Inner Worlds features the recently commissioned portrait of world-renowned philosopher of consciousness David Chalmers by Melbourne-based artist Nick Mourtzakis.

The Bare story

Curator, Penny Grist, reveals how this exhibition came to be

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.

Rick Amor: 21 Portraits