Carol Jerrams' portraiture to star in new exhibition
A new exhibition will showcase more than 140 photographs by acclaimed photographer Carol Jerrems when it opens this week at the National Portrait Gallery.
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.
The exhibition coincides with the 50th anniversary of Jerrems’ landmark publication A book about Australian women, and has been drawn from the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery.
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.
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, 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.
“Jerrems’ work is a defining artistic achievement of the late 20th century that has an astonishingly contemporary relevance. Many of her images feel as if they were made today’,” said Bree Pickering, Director of the National Portrait Gallery.
The exhibition opens on 30 November at the National Portrait Gallery until 2 March. Adults are $20 and under 18s are free.
You can find out more on the NPG website.