Portraits stay popular

Portraits have always been popular with Australian audiences, with the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW being one of its biggest exhibitions every year. Even overseas, Annie Leibovitz's exhibition at England's National Portrait Gallery has been doing extremely well with audiences although her celebrity connection probably helped out in this area. It is no surprise then that the Government has sprung for a new National Portrait Gallery in Australia. Located next to the National Gallery in Canberra it is set to change the precinct which is populated with many other museums.

The work on the new gallery has been going on since mid-2006 and the design and construction process is up on the NPA website and is a great look at the way galleries are built. The gallery opens on Thursday the 4th of December with My Favourite Australian from 4 December 2008 - 1 March 2009 in conjunction with the ABC program and is set to be another crowd favourite.