© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
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The Brougham
A philosopher-style of beard – thick and lengthy; a greyer, hence wiser version of the Burke; and suited to older men who saw themselves as sagacious or statesmanlike.
The Burke
A big daddy of a beard; long; bushy; rugged, but not unkempt; typically found on the faces of explorers or bushrangers.
The Parkes
It wasn’t uncommon for the pro-beard fraternity of the mid nineteenth century to cite beards as a sign of wisdom on the grounds that Socrates and other ancient philosophers had worn them.
The Lyster
A strong, silent type of beard; bushy and manly, but also shaped and contained, a restrained version of a Burke or a Parkes.
The Hooker
Not unlike the style famously observed by Abraham Lincoln, the Hooker consists of a furry chinstrap, starting alongside the ears, clinging to the ridge of jawbone and joining at the chin.
The Lambert
Barbering manuals of the turn of the century might describe this style as a ‘Van Dyck’, named after the Dutch painter Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) who is known to have adopted this look.
The Cohen
Somewhat like the Lambert but more avuncular, more businesslike, less dandified or effete – the sort of style you’d expect to see on a bank manager in the 1920s.
The Hubert
A facial hair style suggesting something of the boys’-own type of chap who seems to have had much currency in the early years of the twentieth century.
The Gibb
The 1950s are popularly thought of as an uptight, conservative time when men were clean-cut, brylcreemed and clean-shaven.
Jo's mo show
(with beards)
Exhibition closes 1 April
This exhibition illustrates changes in beards, moustaches and sideburns from the 1780s to the 1980s.