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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

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Search / turia pitt

Turia Pitt

Biography

Turia Pitt (b. 1987), author, businesswoman, motivational speaker and athlete, grew up in Ulladulla, New South Wales and studied engineering and science at the University of NSW, graduating in 2010.

1 portrait in the collection

Turia Pitt, 2017 (printed 2021)

Peter Brew-Bevan

Portrait, inkjet print on paper

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

Une Femme Amoureuse, Self portrait as Mireille Mathieu, 2022 Yvette Coppersmith

You, looking at me

Magazine article by Elspeth Pitt, 2022

Elspeth Pitt chats with Archibald Prize-winning artist Yvette Coppersmith about performance, coincidences and the intersection of art and life.

The Right Honourable William Pitt

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

The Right Honourable William Pitt, 1799

Charles Brome after William Owen

Portrait, line engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2016

2021 Annual Appeal

Annual Appeal

In 2021 the Annual Appeal was focussed on Peter Brew-Bevan's portraits of athletes Turia Pitt, Leisel Jones OAM and Ellie Cole OAM.

Reg Livermore, Pitt Street, Sydney, 1965 (printed 2020)

Robert McFarlane

Portrait, inkjet print on paper

Purchased 2020

George Rose

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

George Rose, 1811

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

Portrait, engraving on paper

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012

In conversation with Colin Davidson

General content

Belfast-based artist, Colin Davidson talks about the fortuitous happenstances that led to him painting a range of famous faces (from Brad Pitt to the Queen, and everyone in between!)

William Johnson

Biography

William Johnson was a commercial photographer who operated a studio on the corner of Pitt and Market Streets in Sydney from the 1890s to the 1920s.

4 portraits in the collection

John Connell, c. 1830

Richard Read Jnr

Portrait, watercolour on paper laid on cardboard

Gift of Eleanor Thornton 2013. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.

John Davis

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

Frances Samuel

Biography

Frances Samuel (1818-c. 1898) was a member of one of early Sydney's most significant Jewish settler families.

1 portrait in the collection

Sidney Riley Studios

Biography

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

Richard Read Jnr

Biography

Richard Read junior arrived in Sydney from his native London in November 1819.

2 portraits in the collection

Charles Brome

Biography

Charles Brome, engraver, trained from the age of fourteen with the engraver Skelton in London and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1798 to 1801.

1 portrait in the collection

Portrait 68

Summer 2022/23

Magazine

Rebecca Ray on Robert Fielding’s Mayatjara series, Jennifer Higgie on Alice Neel, Elspeth Pitt chats with Yvette Coppersmith, Vincent Fantauzzo on virtual sittings with Hugh Jackman and more.

Robert Ross

Biography

Robert Ross (1792–1862), clergyman, studied medicine in his native Edinburgh before being ordained into the Church of Scotland in 1818.

1 portrait in the collection

Falk Studios

Biography

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

5 portraits in the collection

Hera Roberts

Biography

Hera Roberts (1892-1969) was a painter, illustrator, designer, commercial artist and milliner.

1 portrait in the collection

Hera Roberts, 1936

Max Dupain OBE

Portrait, gelatin silver photograph on paper

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

Sir George Young

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

The Sculling Match at Sydney for the Championship of the World

The Sculling Match at Sydney for the Championship of the World, 1877

an unknown artist, The Australasian Sketcher

Portrait, wood engraving on paper

Purchased 2015

Jemima Bellette

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

George Bellette

Biography

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

1 portrait in the collection

David Campbell

Biography

David Campbell (1952–1984) decided to become an artist while a student at Erina High on the New South Wales Central Coast.

3 portraits in the collection

Eric Bana

Biography

Eric Bana (b. 1968), actor, was born Eric Banadinovich to a Croatian father and German mother and grew up in Melbourne.

1 portrait in the collection

Charles Abraham

Biography

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

Edward Trickett

Biography

Edward 'Ned' Trickett (1851- 916), sculler and hotelier, was the best sculler in New South Wales by 1875.

1 portrait in the collection

John Fairfax, c. 1860

Edwin Dalton

Portrait, pastel on paper laid on canvas

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

Thomas Townshend, Lord Viscount Sydney

Biography

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

John Connell

Biography

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

James Donovan

Biography

James T Donovan (1861–1922), journalist, Catholic historian and amateur singer, was born into an Irish Catholic family in Sydney and grew up in Womerah Avenue, Darlinghurst.

1 portrait in the collection

The Burke and Wills Monument, 1869

Thomas Foster Chuck

Portrait, albumen paper photograph on carte de visite

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2001

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

An affray which deserves particular mention

Ben Hall and his gang outdone, 6 February 1865

About Face article

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

William Francis King, 'The Flying Pieman'

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

John Davis

Portrait, albumen paper carte de visite

Gift of the family of FW Macpherson 2010

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

Vanity Fair Portraits

Photographs 1913-2008

Previous exhibition, 2009

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

Extremely generous and incredibly close

Magazine article by Michael Desmond, 2010

Michael Desmond examines the daguerreotype portraits created by American artist Chuck Close.

Sideshow Alley

Infamy, the macabre & the portrait

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.

Time and light

In Gallery Seven

Previous exhibition, 2023

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.

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

Waterloo and Mrs. Moore

About Face article

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.

The Multifarious Career of George Selth Coppin

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2004

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

Portrait of Dr Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster

To the end of the earth

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2009

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

Earth to earth

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2013

Dr Sarah Engledow discusses the recent gift of works by David Campbell.

Sydney city (Patrick White and Tom Uren, Hiroshima Day demonstration), 1984

The activist A-list

Magazine article by Dr Sarah Engledow, 2007

Dr Sarah Engledow examines a number of figures in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery who were pioneers or substantial supporters of the seminal Australian environmental campaigns of the early 1970s and 1980s.

Mick Jagger, Madonna and Tony Curtis, 1997

The Vanity model

Magazine article by David Friend, 2009

Vanity Fair Editor David Friend describes how the rebirth of the magazine sated our desire for access into the lives of celebrities and set the standard for the new era of portrait photography.

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