THERE’S something in the air at the National Portrait Gallery, hitherto a bastion of respectability, with a sense that in this summer season it has embarked on breaking records and boundaries.

Not only is there the daring exhibition “In the flesh,” the NPG’s first paying exhibition and one that explores questions all our other main galleries should be looking at, but now in “Rick Amor: 21 portraits”, open to the public from today, Friday, November 28, curator Sara Engeldow has undertaken a serious examination of a body of portraiture by one of our leading artists.

Because of his role as a war artist in Timor L’Este, Amor is no stranger to Canberra and this exhibition brings together paintings, prints and drawings spanning Rick Amor’s 30-year career, confirming his status as one of Australia’s great portrait artists.

NPG director Angus Trumble says as much, commenting, “It is wonderful to see the portraits of a single artist represented in an exhibition, especially one of Rick Amor’s calibre.”

Amor is known particularly for his skill as a painter, the gallery says, “creating enigmatic, ominous landscapes and cityscapes”. But “21 Portraits” looks at his broader practice, “ his professional commissions, his artistic circle in Melbourne, his periods abroad, his stern self-analysis and his brooding visions of the natural and built environment.”

As well as four self-portraits, the show includes portraits of artists, poets, writers reflecting Amor’s broad interest in culture, politics and the written word. This show draws portraits from both private collections and the Portrait Gallery’s own collection.

Amor has spent much of his artistic career working in Melbourne, where he attained a certain notoriety from 1975 to 1983 when he produced a series of cartoons attacking the Fraser government, later receiving support from union members during a period of severe financial difficulty.

After 1983 he began to paint the more personal and emotionally-charged works for which he has become famous. In 1999, as Australia’s first official war artist since Vietnam, he travelled to East Timor to document the land and the reconstruction efforts of peacekeepers. The resulting often disturbing works are in the collection of the Australian War Memorial where they provide a lasting record of the devastation wreaked on Timor L’Este after the vote for Independence.

A regular exhibitor and finalist in the Archibald prize, his works are held in all major public collections in Australia and 2008, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne held a survey show of Amor’s paintings and drawings.

Rick Amor, “21 Portraits,” National Portrait Gallery, King Edward Terrace, Parkes, 10am – 5pm daily until 1 March 1, 2015.