National Portrait Gallery is an art museum in Canberra , Australia . The gallery’s mission is “to increase the understanding and appreciation of the Australian people—their identity, history, culture, creativity and diversity—through portraiture.” The gallery’s collection spans 400 years of Australian history. It consists of about 2,300 works of art in various media, including paintings, drawings, water colors, prints, sculpture, and video.
The idea of a national museum of Australian portraits dates back to an idea proposed in the early 1900’s by the Australian painter Tom Roberts . However, the idea did not gain significant support until the 1990’s. In 1992, an exhibition called “Uncommon Australians” opened in Canberra and toured four state museums. The success of the exhibition eventually led to the establishment of the National Portrait Gallery in 1998 by the Australian government. The first exhibit took place in 1999 in the Parliamentary Library and two nearby wings of the Old Parliament House in Canberra.
In 2005, the Sydney architecture firm of Johnson Pilton Walker was selected to design a gallery building. The new National Portrait Gallery opened to the public on Dec. 4, 2008.
