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Exhibitions

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Before hand

The private life of a portrait

Previous exhibition, 2020

Revealing the backstories behind the NPG collection, Before hand features interviews with artists and sitters as well as working drawings, scrapbooks, sketches and footage taken in artists’ studios and out on location.

Portrait Allsorts

In Gallery Seven

Previous exhibition, 2020

Offering portraiture in all its flavours: painting, photography, drawing, textiles, printmaking and sculpture, this exhibition is a feast for minds and eyes.

Collection display in Gallery Three, April 2023

Collection display galleries

Previous exhibition, 2020

The collection display includes a wide selection of portraits that tell extraordinary stories of encounter, exploration, independence, individuality and achievement in Australia.

Jimmy Barnes at The Coogee Bay Hotel 1984 (detail) Grant Matthews

Pub Rock

Your backstage pass to 70s and 80s sounds and scenes

Previous exhibition, 2020

Celebrate the people, places and sounds of Australian pub rock and its enduring impact on our nation’s identity.

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.

Darling Portrait Prize 2020

Previous exhibition, 2020

The Darling Prize is a new biennial prize for Australian portrait painters, painting Australian sitters. The winner receives a cash prize of $75,000.

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020

Previous exhibition, 2020

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Eye to eye

Previous exhibition, 2019

Eye to Eye is a summer Portrait Gallery Collection remix arranged by degree of eye contact – from turned away with eyes closed all the way through to right-back-at-you – as we explore artists’ and subjects’ choices around the direction of the gaze.

Elle Macpherson, 1995 photographed by Andrew Macpherson

Women in Vogue

Celebrating Sixty Years in Australia

Previous exhibition, 2019

This exhibition showcases sixty years of the Vogue Australia archive together with a special tribute to some remarkable Australian women who have featured in the pages of Vogue, and includes iconic portraits of Kylie Minogue and Elle Macpherson, among others.

The Look

Previous exhibition, 2019

Featuring striking photographic portraits of contemporary figures from the National Portrait Gallery collection, The Look is an aesthetic treat with a lashing of je ne sais quoi.

Primed

Some Prime Ministers

Previous exhibition, 2019

Seventeen of Australia’s thirty prime ministers to date are represented in the contrasting sizes, moods and mediums of these portraits.

Icons

Parliament House

Touring exhibition, 2019

When a portrait communicates determination and individuality as boldly as these do, it has the potential to become an iconic image. For the Gallery’s 20th birthday this display brings together a group contemporary photographic portraits of inspiring women and men.

Starstruck: On Location

Australian Movie Portraits

Touring exhibition, 2019

Striking, beautiful portraiture comes out of the most thoroughly documented creative process there is – filmmaking. In a ground-breaking collaboration the National Portrait Gallery and National Film and Sound Archive invite you into this captivating realm between real and fictional worlds.

Greta In Her Kitchen, 36 weeks, 2018 by Alana Holmberg

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2019

Previous exhibition, 2019

The exhibition is selected from a national field of entries, reflecting the distinctive vision of Australia's aspiring and professional portrait photographers and the unique nature of their subjects.

Carte-o-mania!

Previous exhibition, 2018

Drawn from the NPG’s burgeoning collection of cartes de visite, Carte-o-mania! celebrates the wit, style and substance of the pocket-sized portraits that were taken and collected like crazy in post-goldrush Australia.

Portrait of Li Cunxin, 2017–2018 (detail) by Jun Chen

20/20

Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions

Previous exhibition, 2018

20/20 showcases the dynamic suite of new portraits commissioned to celebrate the National Portrait Gallery’s 20th year. Leaders and individualists invited by the Gallery were matched with unique artists to create distinctive contemporary portraits.

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