© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
A passion eating into your vitals
The ‘Mad Dentist of Wynyard Square’ in court, 18 December 1865
About Face article
The salacious and sordid details of Henry Kinder’s death transfixed Sydneysiders with a case combining murder with seduction, mesmerism, blackmail and poisoning.
Milestones
About Face article
This month I turn fifty, soI am just now looking rather more closely than usual at Fiona Foley, Steven Heathcote, Brenda Croft, Russell Crowe, Jeff Fenech, Akira Isogawa, Lee Kernaghan, My Le Thi, Shona Wilson and Mark Taylor AO, mindful that they too were 1964 arrivals.
Centenary of ANZAC
About Face article
Just now we pause to mark the centenary of ANZAC, the day when, together with British, other imperial and allied forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli at the start of the ill-starred Dardanelles campaign.
Cocky McGrath
About Face article
The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo
The personal and the historical
About Face article
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.
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.
Very fine and very like
About Face article
When did notions of very fine and very like become separate qualities of a portrait? And what happens to 'very like' in the age of photographic portraiture?
The Bath Butterfly
About Face article
The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.
Queen Victoria
About Face article
Last Sunday I had the privilege of appearing at the Canberra Writers’ Festival in conversation with Julia Baird. The subject of our session was Julia’s recent biography, Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman who Ruled an Empire.
The medallion
About Face article
In recent years I have become fascinated by the so-called Sydney Cove Medallion (1789), a work of art that bridges the 10,000-mile gap between the newly established penal settlement at Port Jackson and the beating heart of Enlightenment England.
Talking heads
About Face article
In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.
The play’s the thing
About Face article
Penelope Grist charts an immersive path through Stuart Spence’s photography.
Beyond the bow tie
About Face article
Nathan Faiman delves into the rich life story and legacy of Alan Goldberg.
Embrace your inner nerd
About Face article
The southern winter has arrived. For people in the northern hemisphere (the majority of humanity) the idea of snow and ice, freezing mist and fog in June, potentially continuing through to August and beyond, encapsulates the topsy-turvidom of our southern continent.
20/20 launch speech
About Face article
Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.
Portraiture in a Bleak House
About Face article
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.