EXHIBITION REVIEW Two Faces: The National Portrait Gallery and Academia* ELISABETH FINDLAY In December 2008 the doors of the new Australian National Portrait Gallery were opened to the public. Visitor numbers quickly exceeded expectations and currently stand at over 1.5 million. In this paper it will be argued that the appeal of the portrait gallery relies upon the presentation of an accessible and relatively simple view of biography. This simple view is at odds with academic perspectives and revisionist scholarship which increasingly examines portraits as complex, dense and historically difficult images. Given the differences between popular and scholarly ideas of portraiture, this review considers viable and productive paths for collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery and academia. IN THE NINETEENTH century, the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote that portraits were ‘small lighted candles’ by which biographies could be read. 1 He stated that even an indifferent portrait is better than none at all and that a portrait was superior in ‘real instruction’ to half-a-dozen written biographies. Although Carlyle was writing in the mid-nineteenth century, his ideas continue to resonate in places as far afield as Australia. Only recently, the Australian curator Anna Gray observed in her 2010 catalogue Face: Australian Portraits 1880Á1960 that there is a primacy to viewing faces which lies at the core of our fascination with portraits. 2 This fascination has been reflected in the success of the Australian National Portrait Gallery (NPG) which was founded in 1994 and is now housed in a purpose-built gallery in Canberra. The long-time Director Andrew Sayers oversaw the construction and implementation of the NPG based on a vision that was championed by the patrons Gordon and Marilyn Darling. The NPG now has a firm place in Australia’s cultural landscape and is widely celebrated for its achievements. The NPG, however, has also had its critics who have argued that it lacks direction and purpose. The most ardent and consistent opponent is the writer Humphrey McQueen, who lashed out at the idea of a portrait gallery when the * I would like to acknowledge and thank the Director of the NPG, Louise Doyle, and the Deputy Director, Michael Desmond, for discussing their views of the NPG with me. I also want to thank the anonymous referee for their pertinent comments. 1 The Carlyle Letters Online, Thomas Carlyle to David Laing, 2 May 1854, http://carlyleletters. dukejournals.org/ 2 Anna Gray, Face: Australian Portraits 1880Á1960 (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2010), 15. ISSN 1031-461X print/1940-5049 online/12/010119-08# 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2012.659805 119