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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

Portrait of Captain James Cook RN

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.

Alexis with moon, 2024 Amos Gebhardt

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2024

Learning resources

Let’s take a look at the National Photographic Portrait Prize for 2024!

An Arctic Time Signature

by Devika Bilimoira
General content

Finalist, MDPA 2015

Jørn Utzon

The 'Multi Exposed Hand'

22 January 2005
General content

Photographer Jozef Vissel talks about his ‘Multi Exposed Hand’ portrait of Sydney Opera House architect Jørn Utzon.

Woman and child, 2010 by Sam Jinks

Transience

More about In the flesh

These paintings by Juan Ford and sculptures by Sam Jinks evoke the impermanence of human life.

Two people at a bench covered in sheets of paper in a room with a wooden floor and a large brown couch

Kate Beynon

Artists and Collectives

Born in Hong Kong, Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Kate Beynon builds from the cultural legacy of her familial ancestry and experience to envision hybrid personas, identities, worlds and mythologies.

Angelica Mesiti in profile wearing a white linen shirt in front of a dark leafy hedge

Angelica Mesiti

Artists and Collectives

Internationally renowned, Paris-based artist Angelica Mesiti creates video installations that are absorbing and profound experiences for audiences.

Davida Allen, 2016 by Mark Mohell

Davida Allen

Explore The Popular Pet Show

Going around a gallery with a child, we point to a painting of a dog and brightly ask ‘What’s that?’ If they don’t say ‘A dog’, we tell them that’s what it is. We don’t say it’s a shape inscribed by an artist that’s popularly understood to signify a dog. That’d only serve to foster a smarty-pants.

William Robinson, 2016 by Mark Mohell

William Robinson

Explore The Popular Pet Show

Unique in the world, perhaps, is a bronze sculpture that fuses the age-old human portrait bronze tradition, and the later genre of the bronze pug figurine: that’d be William Robinson’s Self-portrait with pug.

Jaq Grantford

Jaq Grantford

Vox pops

A self-portrait from a different time, feels like a different time, even though it's only a couple of years ago or one and a half years, if that, and it was my commentary on COVID and how I was feeling about it at the time.

Angus Trumble National Portrait Gallery Director

National Portrait Gallery Director announced

20 December 2013
Archived media releases 2013

The National Portrait Gallery welcomes Angus Trumble

Nick Cave

The Amazing Face: a 14-day Dive into Portraiture

Archived media releases 2020

The National Portrait Gallery is offering a free online class on the art of portraiture from April 28.

Students in the Gallery

Visiting with a school group

Visual Stories

Access support for students.

Granny's 90th, 2012 by Katherine Bennett

Katherine Bennett

Finalist interviews

The lady in the centre of this photograph is my partner's Granny. So we are almost directly related, and here, as with all photographic work. I am in a state of exchange though I think only directly, with one of the women!

I was not waving but drowning II, 2005 by Atul Bhalla

Atul Bhalla

by Khavita Singh
Artist essays

Atul Bhalla was born in 1964 in New Delhi. He frequently combines photography, installation, sculpture, video, painting and performance to question the human relationship with the natural and constructed environment.

Gordon Darling Hall

Visiting at a quiet time

Visual Stories

Access support for visitors with sensory sensitivities or autism.

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
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Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency