National Portrait Gallery, Portrait gallery in Parkes, Australia

The National Portrait Gallery is an art museum in Canberra that showcases portraits of notable Australians displayed in a modern building at King Edward Terrace. The collection includes paintings, photographs, and other artworks arranged across multiple exhibition spaces.

Painter Tom Roberts proposed a national portrait gallery in the early 1900s, but the idea took shape only in the 1990s, after the 1992 touring exhibition Uncommon Australians organised by founding patrons Gordon and Marilyn Darling. Andrew Sayers was appointed inaugural director in May 1998, when the collection was established; displays opened in Old Parliament House in 1999. The A$87 million building by Johnson Pilton Walker opened on King Edward Terrace on 4 December 2008, and the gallery closed for rectification work from April to September 2019.

The collection began in May 1998 with Andrew Sayers as inaugural director, and the first displays opened in 1999 in the refurbished Parliamentary Library and two wings of Old Parliament House. Portraits are chosen for achievement in a field or for lasting public interest, and the annual Andrew Sayers Memorial Lecture honours the founding director.

The building on King Edward Terrace sits beside the High Court of Australia, and its five bays run perpendicular to the Land Axis laid out in Walter Burley Griffin's plan for Canberra. Entry is through the court between the two large cantilevered concrete blades on the eastern side, leading into the foyer. Galleries are lit by clerestory windows, so light changes through the day.

The museum hosts two notable competitions: the National Photographic Portrait Prize and the Darling Portrait Prize, which feature contemporary Australian portrait artists. These events draw artists and allow visitors to discover fresh works regularly.