Национальная портретная галерея Австралии в Канберре

Public art gallery in Canberra, Australia

The National Portrait Gallery (NPGA) in Canberra is a public art gallery containing portraits of prominent Australians. It was established in 1998 and moved to its present building on King Edward Terrace in December 2008.

In the early 1900s, the painter Tom Roberts was the first to propose that Australia should have a national portrait gallery, but it was not 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 inaugural 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 collection was established in May 1998, and until 2008 was housed in Old Parliament House and in a nearby gallery on Commonwealth Place. 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 A$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 on King Edward Terrace, beside the High Court of Australia – by prime minister Kevin Rudd.

The portrait gallery contains portraits of prominent Australians (by birth or association) who are important in their field of endeavour, or whose life sets them apart as an individual of long term public interest. In 2020, the National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection stands at approximately 3000 portraits across a range of mediums – including photography, painting, drawing, multimedia, sculpture and textiles – and continues to grow through an acquisition and commissioning program tied to a judiciously applied collection criteria.

There are two exhibitions presented as the gallery's "National Portrait Prizes".

The gallery’s National Photographic Portrait Prize (NPPP) is an annual award for Australian photographers, as of 2022 worth .

In March 2020 the inaugural Darling Portrait Prize for painted portraits, featuring a winner’s prize, was established in honour of L. Gordon Darling AC CMG (1921 2015), who was a key founder of the National Portrait Gallery. This is a biennial prize. 2022: Jaq Grantford, for her self portrait governed by the Board of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia (NGPA). Quinlan was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Australia Day Honours list, "for her significant service to the visual arts and to higher education." In August 2022 Quinlan was appointed chief executive of Arts Centre Melbourne, with the new role starting on 3 October 2022. Trent Birkett took over as acting director, until Bree Pickering began a five year appointment in April 2023.