There have been forty-four Presidents of the College to date, and their portraits line the walls of 145 and 147 Macquarie Street, Sydney, the home of the RACP since 1938. These works span a range of artistic styles, though most are traditional oil paintings or photographic images. Over the years, several distinguished portrait artists have been commissioned to contribute to this collection.

Notable artists represented include multiple Archibald Prize winners William Dargie and Judy Cassab. Dargie (Charles McDonald, Alan Holmes à Court, Edward Sayers) worked as a professional portraitist for 65 years and is celebrated for his significant contribution to Australian portraiture, as well as for his service as an official war artist during the Second World War. His sitters formed a veritable who’s who of leading Australians across fields as varied as the military, industry, sport, education, and science.

Judy Cassab painted four Presidents (Morvyn Williams, Stanley Goulston, Geoffrey McDonald, John Hickie) after she rose to national prominence in 1960, becoming only the second woman to win the Archibald Prize. In 1967, she made history again as the first woman to win the award twice. Cassab remains one of only two women to have achieved this distinction.

Other notable artists include Archibald Prize winners Charles Wheeler (Sidney Valentine Sewell), Henry Hanke (Harold Ritchie), Ivor Hele (Melville Chinner), Wesley Walters (Kevin Cohen), as well as Justus Jorgenson of Montsalvat fame, who painted John Gerald Hayden.

Interestingly, the portrait of the inaugural College President, Charles Bickerton Blackburn (1938–1940), hanging in the Fellows Room at 145 Macquarie Street, was only painted by Douglas Dundas in 1960, after the original work by Fred Leist was deemed irreparable. The Dundas version was painted from a photograph of Blackburn taken in 1938.

Paul Fitzgerald painted three Presidents, including the first woman, Priscilla Kincaid-Smith, as well as John Frew and Richard Larkins. It is the portrait of the second female President, Jill Sewell, however, that stands out as the most striking in the collection. Painted by Kynan Sutherland, its unusual, neck-up composition has attracted more attention and comment than any other portrait during my time at the College.

More recently, serial Archibald finalist Robert Hannaford painted five Presidents: Richard Smallwood, Robin Mortimer, Napier Thompson, Geoffrey Metz, and Nicholas Talley. Hannaford has noted that:

'Portraiture is an exploration of character that goes beyond photography. It is an ongoing thing over a long period of time. You get elements of various emotions that can be sensed in the painting'

Talley’s portrait was the last to be formally commissioned as a painting. Since Catherine Yelland’s presidency (2016-2018), all portraits have been photographic images. These include the portraits of the most recent Presidents - Mark Lane, John Wilson and Jacqueline Small - however it is interesting to note that three earlier Presidents are also represented by photographic images, namely Trent Champion de Crespigny (1942-44), Leslie Scott Latham (1948-50), and Harry Maynard Rennie (1970-72).