© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
The hand of Captain Cook
Google Arts and Culture
Learning resources
Take a close look at a portrait with a hidden message in its hands. For Year 7 – 9 students.
Mo and beard timeline
General content
Changes in facial fashions from the 1780s to the present day.
The Brougham
Beards
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.
Caroline Zilinsky and John Feitelson
Vox pops
John is a very unique character so I really wanted to capture that uniqueness.
The Parkes
Beards
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 Demon
Moustaches
Being hirsute was the go in the 1850s, 60s and 70s; but around about the 1880s the beard began to wane.
The Burke
Beards
A big daddy of a beard; long; bushy; rugged, but not unkempt; typically found on the faces of explorers or bushrangers.
The Lyster
Beards
A strong, silent type of beard; bushy and manly, but also shaped and contained, a restrained version of a Burke or a Parkes.
John Brack's Portraiture
Google Arts and Culture
Learning resources
Learn about artist John Brack, who said that portraits involve three people: the painter, the sitter and the viewer. For Year 6 – 8 students.
The Lawson
Moustaches
It’s curious that one of the writers most associated with the toughness of Australian bush life was himself not an exponent of the matted, rugged bushman sort of beard.
Jacki Weaver, 2018
by John Tsiavis
General content
Commissioned with funds provided by Marilyn Darling AC 2018
Tan Le, 2018
by John Tsiavis
General content
Commissioned with funds provided by the Sid and Fiona Myer Family Foundation 2018
The 1850s to the 1880s
Mo and beard timeline
The restrained and cultivated facial hair fashions evident through the first decades of the 1800s were on the wane by the middle of the century, when hirsute faces became mainstream.
Jane’s conviction
Devotion
Stand by your man
The Cohen
Beards
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.
John McRae
NPPP 2012 learning resource
An interview with the photographer.