Michael Desmond worked at the National Portrait Gallery first as Senior Curator from 2006 to 2011 then as Deputy Director until 2012. Before he joined the Gallery, Michael worked as inaugural Manager of the Drill Hall Gallery in Canberra; at the National Gallery of Australia as Senior Curator of International Paintings and Sculpture and as Manager of Collection Development and Research at the Powerhouse Museum.
In the course of his career he developed many exhibitions and wrote numerous articles. Recent exhibitions included 'Present Tense: An imagined grammar of portraiture in the digital age' National Portrait Gallery, 2010; and 'Trigger Happy: New work by Ben Quilty', Drill Hall Gallery, 2013. Michael is an independent writer and curator.
