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Australian Aboriginal Cricketers, 1867

Purchased with funds provided by L Gordon Darling AC CMG 2009

Big Draw 2012 photos

Photos from around the gallery on the day of the Big Draw.

Teen Blooming

Drawn in

Draw while listening to Bella Groove as they play a mix of lively, groovy tunes.

Solitude, 2006

William, 2015

Judy, 2012

The In Between, 2019

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2022

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

Guy in his studio

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize

The competition is for Australian school students and home-schooled students aged from 5-18 years.

Marty's living room

National Youth Self Portrait Prize

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

A bond of friendship

Australia's major abstract painter Yvonne Audette discusses her portrait of sculptor Robert Kippel.

Drawing power

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

Observation point

Australian artist and Archibald Prize winner, Jenny Sages reflects on her work.

Unplanned arrival leads to blissful adoration

A mother’s ‘in-loveness’

Visiting with a school group

Access support for students.

Self portrait with scarf, c. 1930s

Gift of Philip Bacon AM 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Tony Sowersby

Sabine's the sister-in-law of one of my oldest friends so I've known her for a while.

Beyond the Self

This exhibition examines the representation of the self in current South and Southeast Asian art practice through the work of artists from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand

Self portrait, Paris, 1989

Gift of Patrick Corrigan AM 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

Thomas Wentworth Wills

Children of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2016

Senses, movement and imagination in portraits of children from the 2016 Prize. For Year 1 - 3 students.

William Westall, 1854

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2011

Atong Atem

Atong Atem is an Ethiopian-born, South Sudanese artist and writer living in Narrm/Melbourne. Her work explores migrant narratives and postcolonial practices in the African diaspora.

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

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2014

Headspace 6

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

A free family festival to celebrate spring and Children’s Week

Wake from your winter hibernation to celebrate Children’s Week and Canberra’s spring season at the National Portrait Gallery’s free Spring Festival.

Charles Perkins on bus to Tranby Aboriginal College, Glebe, c. 1964 (printed 2015)

Purchased 1999

Arthur Boyd, 1962

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2003

Portrait Paintings by Matthew Perceval

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

Charles Perkins on bus to Tranby Aboriginal College, Glebe, c. 1964 (printed 2003)

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

Rosalie Gascoigne, 1993

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

Studio

Studio: Australian Painters Photographed by R

Judith Inkamala, 1999

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

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2023

We encourage you to look, to feel, to think, to question and most importantly, to identify and connect.

Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2022

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

The intellectual larrikin

Barrie Cassidy pays textured tribute to the inimitable Bob Hawke.

Hall of Mirrors

Hall of Mirrors: Anne Zahalka Portraits 1987-2007 explores the thread of portraiture through the artist's prolific career, now spanning more than 20 years.

The World of Thea Proctor

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

Simon Harsent

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

The Wonder Years

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

Robert Rooney, self portrait December 1978, 1978 (printed 2012)

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

Last week to vote for your favourite portrait

The National Portrait Gallery’s National Photographic Portrait Prize 2015 will close Monday 8 June 2015, this is the last week to visit the exhibition in Canberra and vote for your favourite portrait in the People’s Choice.

Self portrait, 1934

Purchased 1999

Eye line

Jo Bertini describes the evolution of her portrait of artists and friends Kitty Kantilla and Freda Warlapinni.

A guy from Paris

Sarah Engledow on a foundational gallery figure who was quick on the draw.

Women in Vogue: Celebrating Sixty years in Australia

Celebrating sixty years of Australia’s most exceptional women as they appeared in Vogue Australia, the National Portrait Gallery is proud to announce an exhibition in collaboration with this pre-eminent fashion title.

Why portraiture?

Blak Douglas reflects on his experiences, process and motivation for making portraits.

Touchy touchy

Tony Curran ponders whether our phones can change the course of painting.

Myself and Eye

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

To Look Within

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

Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits opens

Visitors will be left in awe with the National Portrait Gallery and National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s (NFSA) new star-studded exhibition, Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits. 

Nikhil Chopra

Nikhil Chopra was born in 1974, in Calcutta. His first degree was in commerce, but in 1997 he took up fine art studies, eventually gaining a Masters in Fine Art from Ohio State University, United States.

Aretha Brown

Gumbaynggirr artist Aretha Brown talks street art, collaboration and ghost stories with First Nations Curator and Meriam woman, Rebecca Ray.

Mr and Mrs Case, 1864

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2010

1 to 6

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

First Ladies

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

Sideshow Alley

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.

Henry Squires, c. 1861

Purchased 2009

Go glossy!

In association with the Glossy 2 exhibition, eight year 10,11 and 12 students spent two days transforming themselves into a variety of alter-egos in the first ever 8x10 Glossy Photo Shoot Workshop.

Time and light

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.

Interview

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

Uncommon Australians

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.

Before Too Long

The story behind the creation of the portrait of singer-songwriter Paul Kelly by the artist Jon Campbell.

Andrew Gaze, 2018

Commissioned with funds provided by Trent Birkett 2018

Village people

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

Facing East

An exhibition at the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC showcases the art of portraiture in Asia over two thousand years.

Speed demon

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

The line of fire

Michelle Fracaro examines the life of World War II nurse Margaret Anderson, whose portrait by Napier Waller is in the NPG collection.

On the road again

Deborah Hill talks figures with character, as the National Portrait Gallery touring exhibitions program welcomes its millionth visitor.

The Final Frontier

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

Ready , set... shoot

The exhibition Flash: Australian Athletes in Focus offers various interpretations of sporting men and women by five Australian photographers.

One and all

The current exhibition of portraits at the National Gallery of Ireland Print Gallery investigates just how paper-thin ideas of likeness are.

Drawn from life

Penelope Grist discovers the rich narratives in Peter Wegner’s series of centenarian portraits.

Painters' paradise

Andrew Sayers feels the warmth in the paintings Matthew Perceval made while the sun shone in southern France.

The selfie stick

Last week ABC Television came to interview me about selfie sticks. The story was prompted by the announcement that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has lately prohibited the use of these inside their galleries. So far as I am aware we have not yet encountered the phenomenon, but no doubt we will before too long.

Announcing Shakespeare to Winehouse

More than eighty treasures from the National Portrait Gallery London will travel to Canberra for a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from March 2022.

The art of peace

Sean Davey captures the portrait of a nation renewed.

The inner voice

Dr Christopher Chapman, curator of Inner Worlds: Portraits & Psychology looks at Albert Tucker's Heidelberg military hospital portraits.

Rock art

Andrew Mayo talks to three of Australia’s most prominent and prolific music photographers — Martin Philbey, Kane Hibberd and Daniel Boud — about the challenges and inspiration behind their craft.

Mash-up

Penelope Grist delves into an insightful portraiture exhibition that asks: How do three artists see the same sitter?

Life class

Barbara Blackman reflects on her experiences as a life model.

Boyd to man

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

Back track

Penelope Grist finds photographer Matt Nettheim re-visiting a formative and fulfilling career tram stop.

Friends and Acquaintances

Dr. Sarah Engledow discusses a collection of drawings and prints by the Victorian artist Rick Amor acquired in 2005.

Keep it in the family

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

Corporate Characters

A collection of thirty-seven caricatures by the artist Joe Greenberg capture the heroes and villians of Australian business in the 1980s.

Expect the unexpected

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

I'm not there

Exposed: Voyeurism Surveillance and the camera since 1870

The Tate/SFMOMA exhibition Exposed examined the role of photography in voyeurism and how it challenges ideas of privacy and propriety.

Peripheral vision

Aimee Board chats to emerging photographer Charles Dennington.

What price self?

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

The art of multiplicity

Meredith Hughes explores a key Portrait Gallery work, emerging into the infinite iterations of identity.

Public hanging

As a convict Thomas Bock was required to sketch executed murders for science; as a free man, fashionable society portraits.

Love in the extreme

Joanna Gilmour reveals love’s more intense manifestations in the tale of Lord Kenelm and Venetia Digby.

Nadiah Bamadhaj

Born in Malaysia in 1968, to a Malaysian Muslim father and a New Zealander mother of Scottish descent Nadiah Bamadhaj studied Fine Arts in New Zealand, and is currently working on a PhD from Curtin University, Western Australia.

Hall of mirrors

Naomi Cass, Director of the Centre of Contemporary Photography, in conversation with Anne Zahalka.

Pushpamala N

Pushpamala N. was born in 1956 in Bangalore. Her early training was in sculpture, but as her practice progressed she brought an early enthusiasm for narrative figuration into her photographic work.

NPPP 2016 exhibition essay

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

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.

Elle on wheels

Lucy Quinn compares the approaches of three photographers lured to the action and culture of roller derby.

The world of Thea Proctor

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

Listening to form

National Gallery of Australia curator Jane Kinsman discusses the portraiture of Henri Matisse.

The real Thea

Long after the portraitist became indifferent to her, and died, a beguiling portrait hung over its subject.

In profile

Penelope Grist explores the photographic instinct of four-time National Photographic Portrait Prize finalist Julian Kingma.

Of plague and portraits

Corinna Cullen on the symbolic power of pandemic-related imagery over the ages.

Waiting for Godot

'Artist and actors, advancing spasmodically, find their rhythm together' writes Sarah Engledow.

Movement is my radar

Michael Desmond charts the path of portraiture, arriving at Julian Opie’s digital realm.

Abstraction and figuration

James Angus discusses his major sculpture commission Geo Face Distributor with Christopher Chapman.

A non-material and non-physical portrait

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

No small wonder

Joanna Gilmour describes how artist Sam Leach works on a small scale to grand effect.

Hump days

Jessica Bolton navigates the parallel tracks documenting Robyn Davidson’s astonishing journey.

Hired guns, bounty hunters and horse whisperers

Jude Rae contemplates the portrait commission.

Beyond the bow tie

Nathan Faiman delves into the rich life story and legacy of Alan Goldberg.

A man of superior attainments

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

Enigma

Grace Carroll contemplates the curious case of Christian Waller.

Finding Mrs Frisby

Robyn Sweaney's quiet Violet obsession.

Painting them gently

Penny Grist on motivation, method and melancholy in the portraiture of Darren McDonald.

Mother’s muse

Inga Walton traces the poignant path of photographer Polixeni Papapetrou, revealed in the NGV’s summer retrospective.

Weaving identity

Rebecca Ray explores the way identity, belonging and connectedness are translated through materiality in First Nations portraiture.

Give me five

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

Take thy face hence

Joanna Gilmour travels through time to explore the National Portrait Gallery London’s masterpieces in Shakespeare to Winehouse.

It's a Mora!

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

Back in black

Krysia Kitch reviews black chronicles at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

The mind's eye

Christopher Chapman takes a trip through the doors of perception, arriving at the junction of surrealism and psychoanalysis.

Moving still

Anne O’Hehir on the seductive power of the film still to reflect and shape ourselves and our cultural landscape.

Drawing inspiration

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

In good company

Jean Appleton’s 1965 self portrait makes a fine addition to the National Portrait Gallery’s collection writes Joanna Gilmour.

Lauded legacy

Karl James gives short shrift to doubts about the profile of General Sir John Monash.

Lovingly observed

Sarah Engledow previews the beguiling summer exhibition, Idle hours.

Nicholas Harding: 28 Portraits

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

Money for Myth

Australian character on the market by Jane Raffan.

Kristin Headlam

Basil grew into a speckled beauty – a long-legged leaper and an exceptionally vocal dog, with a great register of sounds, ascending in shock value from a whimper to a growl to a bark to a yelp that’s a violation of the ears.

The incomparable Beaton

To accompany the exhibition Cecil Beaton: Portraits, held at the NPG in 2005, this article is drawn from Hugo Vickers's authorised biography, Cecil Beaton (1985).

The Dissecting Room

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

Uncommon Australians

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

Lucy Culliton

Most well-regarded pictures of chickens show them dead. A reliable way to tell if a chicken in a painting is dead is to check if it’s hanging upside down, because unlike, say, cockatoos, chickens don’t practise inversion for enjoyment in life.

The art of Inner Worlds

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

Sarah Engledow chronicles Rick Amor's work and accomplishments in this extensive essay in conjunction with the exhibition Rick Amor: 21 Portraits.

Nicholas Harding

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. 

Little women

Joanna Gilmour looks beyond the ivory face of select portrait miniatures to reveal their sitters’ true grit.

Secure the shadow ere the substance fade

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

Through thick and thin

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

Portraiture in a Bleak House

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.

Faces of war

Lesley Harding, Curator, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne explores Albert Tucker’s experience of World War II, his interests in the intersection between psychology and creativity, and their influence on his portrait making.

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.