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Audacity, audacity, audacity
About Face article
Angus delves into the biographies of two ambitious characters; Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir John Pope-Hennessy.
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.
The National Photographic Portrait Prize turns ten
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It is now a little more than 178 years since the French Academy of Sciences was made aware of the invention of the daguerreotype process.
An Australian in Paris
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This week it is impossible not to contemplate the ways in which France has touched many Australian lives.
Happy New Year
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This year (in March) we will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery. In the life of institutions, twenty years is not a long time.
Seeing stars
Celebrating Science Week
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It has been suggested that Sir Thomas Brisbane’s interest in the New South Wales governorship was as attributable to his passion for astronomy as to the desirability of the position as a prestigious career move.
Poise and Carats
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I keep going back to Cartier: The Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia next door, and, within the exhibition, to Princess Marie Louise’s diamond, pearl and sapphire Indian tiara (1923), surely one of the most superb head ornaments ever conceived.
Kate Beynon’s transcultural life and art
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Phoebe Lupton profiles artist Kate Beynon, whose contemplative self portrait features in Archie 100: A Century of the Archibald Prize.
Wicked but Virtuous
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Faith Stellmaker shares pioneering artist and restaurateur Mirka Mora’s lasting legacy on Melbourne’s art, dining and culture.
Dance like everyone’s watching
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Penelope Grist’s spirits soar with Lisa Tomasetti’s Dancers in the Streets series.
Facing the feeling
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Penelope Grist explores the interplay between medicine and portraiture in Vic McEwan’s Face to Face: The New Normal.
The National Portrait Gallery's 20th Anniversary
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Last month we marked the twentieth anniversary of the formal establishment of the National Portrait Gallery, the tenth of the opening of our signature building, and the fifth of our having become a statutory authority under Commonwealth legislation.
The eye and the heart
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Nici Cumpston immerses herself in the collective vision of the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020.
The play’s the thing
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Penelope Grist charts an immersive path through Stuart Spence’s photography.
Maria Caroline Brownrigg
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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
Empirical art
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Several years ago I came across this curious painting on the racks in a distant, dusty corner of the store room in the basement of the Johannesburg Art Gallery in South Africa. Since then the mystery surrounding it has never been far from my mind.