© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
Elegance in exile
Portrait drawings from colonial Australia
Previous exhibition, 2012
Elegance in exile is an exhibition surveying the work of Richard Read senior, Thomas Bock, Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and Charles Rodius: four artists who, though exiled to Australia as convicts, created many of the most significant and elegant portraits of the colonial period.
David M Thomas
Dream Job
Previous exhibition, 2011
Since 1993 Brisbane-based artist David M Thomas has investigated self identity through art works that encompass painting, text, audio, video and performance.
Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe
Shirley Purdie
Previous exhibition, 2020
Using ochres collected on her country in Western Australia’s East Kimberley, Shirley Purdie’s self-portrait is a kaleidoscope of traditional Gija stories and Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) passed down to her.
Paul Kelly and The Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2013
Aspects of singer songwriter Paul Kelly’s performance persona are communicated by portraits selected from a range of artists and leading music photographers in this focus exhibition.
Little Darlings Youth Portrait Prize 2023
Previous exhibition, 2023
Little Darlings is for primary and secondary students, with four separate categories across Kindergarten to Year 12. Responding to the theme ‘Me and my place’, students painted, drew, photographed, printed or combined all of these to make their portrait.
Masters of Fare
Chefs, winemakers, providores
Previous exhibition, 2004
Masters of fare: chefs, winemakers, providores celebrates men and women who have championed the unique culinary characteristics and produce of Australia, enriching our lives with new ideas and new flavours over the past forty years.
Headspace 3
Being Me
Previous exhibition, 2002
The self-portrait enables students to explore emerging and changing aspects of their own identity, their sense of self, their place in the world, their experience of being human
Husbands and Wives
Photographic Portraits from 19th Century Australia
Previous exhibition, 2010
'I have just been to my dressing case to take a peep at you.
Darling Portrait Prize 2024
Previous exhibition, 2024
The Darling Portrait Prize is a biennial national prize for Australian portrait painting honouring the legacy of Mr L Gordon Darling AC CMG.
Sideshow Alley
Infamy, the macabre & the portrait
Previous exhibition, 2015
Death masks, post-mortem drawings and other spooky and disquieting portraits... Come and see how portraits of infamous Australians were used in the 19th century.
Rick Amor
21 Portraits
Previous exhibition, 2014
Rick Amor, noblest yet most unaffected of contemporary Australian portraitists, is also a painter of enigmatic, ominous landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes that haunt the viewer like dreams, dimly-recalled.
Uncommon Australians
The vision of Gordon and Marilyn Darling
Previous exhibition, 2015
This exhibition showcases portraits acquired through the generosity of the National Portrait Gallery’s Founding Patrons, L Gordon Darling AC CMG and Marilyn Darling AC.
Heads of the People
A Portrait of Colonial Australia
Previous exhibition, 2000
For Tom Roberts - Australia's best nineteenth-century portrait painter - neither a proto-national portrait gallery nor more popular collections of portrait heads, were sufficient public celebrations for the notables of Australian history
Making Portraits
Five Years of National Portrait Gallery Commissions
Previous exhibition, 2004
The considered matching of artist to subject has produced an amazing collection of unique and original works in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009
Previous exhibition, 2009
In its second year at the National Portrait Gallery, and for the first time touring to other venues, the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 continues to present surprising perspectives on the nature of contemporary portrait photography.
Open Air
Portraits in the Landscape
Previous exhibition, 2008
Open Air is an exhibition of portraits of Australians in environments of particular significance to them.