An intimate portrait of Carol Jerrems at the National Portrait Gallery

Posted on 29 November, 2024

In a career that spanned only 12 years before her tragic death at the age of 30, Carol Jerrems captured the world around her with curiosity and courage and made an indelible mark on the Australian photographic scene.

Her intimate portraits of friends, lovers and artistic peers have come to shape Australian visual culture and symbolise the new wave.

Carol Jerrems: Portraits is a major exhibition starting tomorrow at the National Portrait Gallery, which showcases the breadth and scope of Jerrems’ portraiture – from early work made at art school to many of her best-known photographs including Vale Street 1975. Set against the backdrop of social change in the 1970s, Carol Jerrems’ practice charted the women’s movement, documented First Nations activism, put a spotlight on youth subcultures and explored the music and arts scenes of the era.

Carol Jerrems, Jenny Bonnette 1974. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Mrs Joy Jerrems 1981 © The Estate of Carol Jerrems

Capturing acquaintances, lovers, the well-known and the everyday, including ‘sharpies’, ‘louts’, and visitors to her St Kilda share house, Jerrems was part of a new wave of artists shaking off the Australian cultural cringe. “She photographed with a playful candour but also a solemnity,” said Isobel Parker Philip, Co-curator and Director, Curatorial and Collection at the National Portrait Gallery. “There was often a sense of narrative play choreographed into the image. Hers isn’t the photography of the ‘decisive moment’ – of street photography or pure documentary. Instead, it vacillates between the candid and the staged,” she said.

Since her premature death in 1980 from a rare condition affecting the liver, Jerrems’ work has been celebrated in significant surveys across Australia, but this will be the first exhibition to draw attention to the specific nature of portraiture in her practice.

Bree Pickering, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, said “Carol tragically died at 30 so her career only spanned about 12 years, but what we get from that is that beautiful intense period of work which really brings to the fore just how fragile we are as human beings. Because she was working at such a young age we see youth reflected in all its dynamism.”

Carol Jerrems, School’s out 1975. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Mrs Joy Jerrems 1981 © The Estate of Carol Jerrems

Drawn from the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery, this major new exhibition showcases more than 140 photographs and coincides with the 50th anniversary of Jerrems’ landmark publication A book about Australian women. Featuring portraits of cultural figures including Anne Summers, Dr Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Sykes, Evonne Goolagong and Linda Jackson, and prominent players from the heyday of Australian pop, among them Red Symons, Ross Wilson and Shirley Strachan, as well as Jerrems’ many friends and contemporaries, the exhibition examines how her work defined a decade through intimate connections and chance encounters.

Born in Melbourne in 1949, Jerrems was one of the first photography students to graduate from Prahran Technical College under renowned filmmaker Paul Cox and distinguished photographer Athol Shmith. As a fresh graduate, in 1971, several works from Jerrems’ student portfolio were acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria for its newly instated photography collection. The following year, she was featured in the inaugural exhibition curated by Rennie Ellis at Brummels Gallery, the first art space in Australia dedicated to photography. A book about Australian women followed in 1974, a collaborative project with writer Virginia Fraser. Jerrems’ swift rise to prominence was cemented in her 1975 work Vale Street, a photograph that has assumed near-mythological status. It remains one of the most iconic Australian photographs ever produced, selling for a record price for an Australian photograph at auction in 2023.

“Jerrems’ work is a defining artistic achievement of the late 20^th century that has an astonishingly contemporary relevance. Many of her images feel as if they were made today’,” said Bree. “This exhibition and the accompanying publication celebrate Jerrems’ life and work, highlighting her extraordinary portraits of women, made for the ground-breaking A book about Australian women, on the 50^th anniversary of its publication.”

Carol Jerrems, Bobbi Sykes, Aboriginal Medical Service 1973. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Mrs Joy Jerrems 1981 © The Estate of Carol Jerrems

Carol Jerrems: Portraits opens on Saturday and is on show exclusively at the National Portrait Gallery until 2 March. It will be accompanied by the first monographic publication on Jerrems’ work, offering new perspectives on her practice. Featuring high-quality reproductions of over 130 vintage prints and contact sheets, alongside essays and creative responses by curators, poets and writers Elena Gomez, Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Neha Kale, Magdalene Keaney, Shaune Lakin and Anne O’Hehir, Celeste Liddle, Pippa Milne and Isobel Parker Philip.