Revealed: National Portrait Gallery offered to return Gina Rinehart painting

The National Portrait Gallery offered to return a portrait of Gina Rinehart to the billionaire miner amid wrangling over the terms of hanging the picture that has dragged on for at least five years.

As recently as 2022, the gallery offered to safely return the painting to the Hancock Prospecting boss if she was “not comfortable with the strictures inherent in our collecting parameters”.

Two years later, the gallery remains the custodian of the painting of Rinehart by West Australian painter Alix Korte, but it does not yet hold legal title over it.

A portrait of Gina Rinehart, from a series by WA artist Alix Korte, posted on the mining billionaire’s official website.Credit: ginarinehart.com.au

The negotiations were revealed in a tranche of documents released to this masthead under freedom-of-information laws, but the precise nature of the sticking points was redacted.

The documents show back-and-forth negotiations between the cultural institution and Rinehart about the conditions of the deed of donation, dating at least as far back as 2019.

These negotiations preceded a campaign launched earlier this year to remove two portraits of Rinehart by Archibald Prize winner Vincent Namatjira from the National Gallery of Australia.

In early April this year, Rinehart complained to Seven chief executive and gallery chair Ryan Stokes about the Namatjira images, which featured in a panel of portraits in a just-opened solo exhibition.

Vincent Namatjira’s portraits of Gina Rinehart were the subject of requests for removal.

The full content of Rinehart’s complaint to Stokes has also been redacted from documents released to this masthead on Friday. After weighing up privacy concerns, these details were deemed by the gallery’s freedom of information office to be not in the public interest.

In her letter to Stokes, the miner said she had been first alerted to the portraits by a friend, and urged the National Gallery to “plan differently ...” The rest of the letter has been blacked out.

Separately in May, Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery revealed to Senate estimates it had been holding a painting of Rinehart that she was willing to donate. Gallery director Bree Pickering revealed that the institution had yet to agree on instructions relating to the manner of its display.

The idea of the gift had followed a 2018 conversation between the gallery and the West Australian artist, who is married to Hancock Prospecting chief executive Garry Korte, the new documents reveal.

The portrait, Gina Rinehart, was selected by Rinehart, who also communicated her preferred framing.

In June 2019, the excited board of the portrait gallery notified Rinehart they had accepted her gift, saying: “The work will make a fabulous donation to our collection, and we are most grateful to you for your generosity in making this gift and for thinking of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia.”

The gallery offered to pay all transportation costs. A biography of Rinehart lauding her achievements and a much smaller reference to the painter was also presented.

But the gift became bogged down in questions over specifics. Rinehart’s legal counsel subsequently sought “particular changes” to the deed of donation and letter of agreement governing acquisitions. By October 2021 Helen Nugent, who was gallery chair until that same year, indicated that revisions had been made and hoped they would be “found acceptable”.

Almost a year later the gallery wrote back to Rinehart’s representatives in an attempt to “finalise the matter”.

“If Mrs Rinehart is ultimately not comfortable with the strictures inherent in our collecting parameters, we would of course completely understand,” the gallery said.

“We await your advice on the matter; if this is indeed found to be the case, we will undertake to safely return the painting to Mrs Rinehart’s keeping.”

A spokesperson for the gallery said the Rinehart portrait has not been formally accessioned into the National Portrait Gallery collection but was still on its premises.

“Several discussions took place between 2019 and 2022 to resolve the Deed of Donation, however the matter has not been finalised,” they said.

Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting, has been contacted for comment.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.