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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?
Robert Oatley AO
1928–2016
About Face article
The National Portrait Gallery mourns the loss of one our most generous benefactors, Robert Oatley AO.
Giving a dam
True south #1
About Face article
Ensconced and meditative in crisp Tasmania, Joanna Gilmour pays tribute to passionate green advocate and photographer Olegas Truchanas.
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.
Stubbs and the horse
About Face article
One of the chief aims of George Stubbs, 1724–1806, the late Judy Egerton’s great 1984–85 exhibition at the Tate Gallery was to provide an eloquent rebuttal to Josiah Wedgwood’s famous remark of 1780: “Noboby suspects Mr Stubs [sic] of painting anything but horses & lions, or dogs & tigers.”
Kate Beynon’s transcultural life and art
About Face article
Phoebe Lupton profiles artist Kate Beynon, whose contemplative self portrait features in Archie 100: A Century of the Archibald Prize.
The stately lotus
About Face article
I spent much of my summer holiday at D’Omah, on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. Lotus and waterlilies sprout in extraordinary profusion in artful ponds amid palms and deep scarlet ginger flowers.
Staying home
True south #2
About Face article
Joanna Gilmour brings a mindful Douglas Mawson’s perspective to bear on the concept of isolation.
Christmas Island
About Face article
This is my last Trumbology before, in a little more than a week from now, I pass to my successor Karen Quinlan the precious baton of the Directorship of the National Portrait Gallery.