National Portrait Gallery (Australia)
 | |
 National Portrait Gallery building | |
  Location in the Australian Capital Territory Show map of Australian Capital Territory  National Portrait Gallery (Australia) (Australia) Show map of Australia | |
| Former name | National Library of Australia, Old Parliament House |
|---|---|
| Established | May 1998 (1998-05) |
| Location | King Edward Terrace, Parkes, Australian Capital Territory |
| Coordinates | 35°18′00″S 149°08′02″E / 35.3°S 149.133889°E / -35.3; 149.133889Coordinates: 35°18′00″S 149°08′02″E / 35.3°S 149.133889°E / -35.3; 149.133889 |
| Type | Portrait gallery |
| Director | Angus Trumble |
| Curator | Dr Christopher Chapman |
| Architect | Johnson Pilton Walker |
| Employees | 61[1] |
| Public transit access | Action buses |
| Website | portrait.gov.au |
The National Portrait Gallery in Australia is a collection of portraits of prominent Australians that are important in their field of endeavour or whose life sets them apart as an individual of long-term public interest. The collection was established in May 1998, and until 2008 was housed in Old Parliament House and in a nearby gallery on Commonwealth Place. On 4 December 2008, its permanent home opened on King Edward Terrace, Canberra beside the High Court of Australia.
Contents
1 History
2 The building
3 Previous exhibitions
4 References
5 External links
History
In the early 1900s, the painter Tom Roberts was the first to propose that Australia should have a national portrait gallery, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the possibility began to take shape.
The 1992 exhibition Uncommon Australians – developed by the Gallery’s founding patrons, Gordon and Marilyn Darling – was shown in Canberra and toured to four state galleries, igniting the idea of a national portrait gallery. In 1994, under the management of the National Library of Australia, the Gallery’s first exhibition was launched in Old Parliament House. It was a further four years before the appointment of Andrew Sayers as Director signalled the establishment of the National Portrait Gallery as an institution in its own right, with a board, a budget and a brief to develop its own collection. The opening of displays in the refurbished Parliamentary Library and two adjacent wings of Old Parliament House in 1999 endorsed the Gallery’s status and arrival as an independent institution.
While the spaces of Old Parliament House proved adaptable to the National Portrait Gallery’s programs, its growing profile and collection necessitated the move to a dedicated building. Funding for the $87 million building was provided in the 2005 Federal Budget and Sydney-based architectural firm Johnson Pilton Walker was awarded the job of creating the gallery, with construction commencing in December 2006. The new National Portrait Gallery opened to the public on 4 December 2008.[2]
The building
The western face of the National Portrait Gallery building
Won through an open international design competition by Johnson Pilton Walker in 2005, the 14,000 square metres (150,000 sq ft) building provides exhibition space for approximately 500 portraits in a simple configuration of day-lit galleries.
The external form of the building responds to its site by using the building’s geometry to connect with key vistas and alignments around the precinct. A series of five bays, each more than 70 metres (230 ft) long, are arranged perpendicular to the Land Axis referring to Walter Burley Griffin’s early concepts for the National Capital.
National Portrait Gallery is a sequence of spaces leading from the Entrance Court defined by the two large cantilever concrete blades on the eastern side of the building, through the foyer to the gallery spaces. Each gallery receives controlled natural light from translucent glazed clerestory windows and views to the outside.
Previous exhibitions
Some of the temporary exhibitions displayed at the National Portrait Gallery include:
- Beyond the Self: Contemporary Portraiture from Asia (2011)
- Inner Worlds: Portraits & Psychology (2011)
- Martin Schoeller: Close Up (2010)
- Present Tense: An Imagined Grammar of Portraiture in the Digital Age (2010)
- Portraits + Architecture (2009)
- Vanity Fair Portraits (2009)
- doppelganger (2009)
- Open Air: Portraits in the landscape (2008)
- Animated: Self Portraits Online (2008)
- Hall of Mirrors: Anne Zahalka Portraits (2007)
- John Brack Portraits (2007)
- Reveries: Photography & Mortality (2007)
- Truth and Likeness (2006)
- Rennie Ellis: Aussies All (2006)
- Clifton Pugh: Australians (2005)
- Cecil Beaton: Portraits (2005)
- KYLIE: An Exhibition (2005)
- The World of Thea Proctor (2005)
- To look within: Self Portraits in Australia (2004)
- Australia and the Nobel Prize (2003)
- Australians in Hollywood (2003)
- Max Dupain: The Vintage Years (2003)
- POL: Portrait of a Generation (2003)
- Rarely Everage: The Lives of Barry Humphries (2002)
- Bill Brandt: A Retrospective (2002)
- Nolan Heads (2001)
- Tete a tete: Portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson (2001)
- Mirror with a memory: Photographic portraiture in Australia (2000)
- Glossy: Faces, Magazines, Now (1999)
References
^ APS Statistical Bulletin 2015–2016 (Report). Australian Public Service Commission. September 2016..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
^ National Portrait Gallery website, "About the Gallery"
External links
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. |
- National Portrait Gallery
- History of Exhibitions
- Current exhibitions
- National Portrait Gallery collection search
- National Portrait Gallery at Google Cultural Institute
