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Progressive pictures

Athol Shmith’s photographs contributed to the emergence of a new vision of Australian womanhood.

Flash mob

Sarah Engledow trains her exacting lens on the nine photographs from 20/20.

Augustus serendipitous

The London-born son of an American painter, Augustus Earle ended up in Australia by accident in January 1825. 

Mugshots

A toast to the acquisition of an unconventional new portrait of former Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce.

Listomania

Sarah Engledow describes the fall-out once Brett Whiteley stuck Patrick White’s list of his loves and hates onto his great portrait of the writer.

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. 

Off her own bat

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

A feast of friends

John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.

Maria Caroline Brownrigg

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

Portrait Donors

Petal to the mettle

Sarah Engledow lauds the very civil service of Dame Helen Blaxland.

You are who?

Joanna Gilmour reflects on merging collections and challenging traditional assumptions around portraiture in WHO ARE YOU.

The silent partner

One half of the team that was Eltham Films left scarcely a trace in the written historical record, but survives in a vivid portrait.

The Rothschilds, the Montefiores, and the Victorian Gold Rush

Some years ago my colleague Andrea Wolk Rager and I spent several days in the darkened basement of a Rothschild Bank, inspecting every one of the nearly 700 autochromes created immediately before World War I by the youthful Lionel de Rothschild.

Some prime ministers

Sarah Engledow explores the history of the prime ministers and artists featured in the exhibition.

Less than six degrees of separation

Dr Anne Sanders NPG Curatorial Researcher investigated the lives of the pioneering psychologists whose portraits are featured in Inner Worlds.