“In its totality, we can appreciate the energy and the urgency she brought to the medium.”
The career of Melbourne-born Carol Jerrems (1949–1980) was short-lived, leaving one wondering what she might have achieved if she had lived beyond thirty years of age. Yet these anxieties subside knowing what trailed her untimely death: a potent legacy that has only intensified over time.
Today, she is renowned as one of Australia’s most prominent twentieth century photographers. The young artist studied photography at the Prahran Technical College and, from early on, concentrated on subcultures, marginalised communities and personal relationships, overlayed with themes of feminism, First Nations activism and youth rebellion. Her most recognisable work, Vale Street, 1975, emanates vulnerability and power: taken in a St Kilda backyard, twenty-one-year-old aspiring actress Catriona Brown stands in natural light, shirtless, with two dimly lit men closely behind, framed by flora and fauna.
This summer, the National Portrait Gallery has brought attention to the artist’s intimate and social conscious documentary-style oeuvre with the major exhibition Carol Jerrems: Portraits. We spoke with Isobel Parker Philip (Director, Curatorial and Collection, National Portrait Gallery) on Jerrems’ posthumous recognition and her ongoing influence on Australian visual and photographic culture.
Carol Jerrems, 1/2 length self portrait in mirror, wearing pyjama shirt, camera at shoulder height, 1979. National Library of Australia, Manuscript Collection (MS 10718). © The Estate of Carol Jerrems. Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Australian Capital Territory
Tahney Fosdike: During her brief time with us as an artist, how did Jerrems’ own youth lend itself to her perspective and practice?
Isobel Parker Philip: We don’t have the opportunity to see how Jerrems’ career would have developed. What is extant in her prolific output is that she was an artist with a clear and distinct vision from the outset. Our exhibition features early work made while she was in art school. These works don’t betray an artist trying to find their voice; they sit in the lineage of her most famous photographs, prefacing their composition, sentiment and tone. In its totality, we can appreciate the energy and the urgency she brought to the medium. She always had her camera, using it to mediate her place in the world. Whether that impulse and commitment would’ve been sustained – we can’t know. But her insatiable drive to document her world carries an intensity still felt today.
Carol Jerrems, Jenny Bonnette, 1974. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Mrs Joy Jerrems 1981. © The Estate of Carol Jerrems
Carol Jerrems, School’s out, 1975. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of Mrs Joy Jerrems, 1981. © The Estate of Carol Jerrems
TF: Why didn’t her work fade into obscurity? How has her legacy evolved?
IPP: Shot when Jerrems was just twenty-six years old, Vale Street, 1975 remains one of Australia’s most important photographs. Its influence and impact was recognised almost immediately. After its first exhibition, it was acquired by major institutions and featured in important publications. In recent years, it set a record for the most expensive Australian photograph sold at auction.
Her work holds our attention because it offers a glimpse into a moment of political, social and cultural change, yet also invites and invokes many interpretations. Jerrems understood portraiture not simply about capturing a likeness, but as a way to tell stories. She coaxed frank emotional disclosure from her subjects yet also choreographed narratives transcending the specificity of the shoot.
Her work straddles the candid and the staged, continuing to shape how we think about photography today.
TF: If you could only look at one photograph in the exhibition, which would it be?
IPP: While many would presume the focus to be Vale Street, other photographs allow us to appreciate her observational acuity and sensitivity to pose and gesture. ‘Sandy’, Yarra River, taken the same year as Vale Street, shows a body mid-motion; he winds his arm as if he’s about to skip a stone or bowl a cricket ball or dance. In the line of his concave back, we find echoes of other works. Jerrems was often drawn to bodies that bend and buckle, bodies that express emotion through movement. We find a similar pose in Vale Street, but this quiet photograph, taken down by the river, spotlights and distils her interest in the body as a conduit for narrative tension.
Tahney Fosdike is a writer from the Murraylands, South Australia, now living in Paris.
National Portrait Gallery
30 November 2024 to 2 March 2025
Australian Capital Territory
Originally published in print – Art Almanac, February 2025 issue, pp. 24–26
