Self portrait

Carol Jerrems
Australia
1949 – 1980

Self portrait
from the series Hospital
1979
gelatin-silver photograph
Place made
Hobart
Medium
gelatin-silver photograph
Dimensions
23.9 x 15.8 cm (image)
Credit line
Maurice A. Clarke Bequest Fund 2013
Accession number
20134Ph86
Signature and date
Not signed. Not dated.
Media category
Photograph
Collection area
Australian Photographs
Copyright
© Estate of Carol Jerrems
Image credit
Photo: AGSA

  • WALL LABEL: Public Image, Private Lives: Family, Friends and Self in Photography, 2016

     

     

    In 1979 Jerrems moved to Hobart to teach at the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education.  That year she became critically ill and was eventually diagnosed with Budd-Chiari syndrome, a rare condition affecting the liver. She spent several painful and uncertain months in hospital, but continued to take photographs from her hospital ward, including unflinching self-portraits, such as this one, which document her physical decline.

     

    While in hospital she sent her rolls of film to her friend and fellow photographer Roger Scott in Sydney for processing and printing. In late 1979 Jerrems moved back to Melbourne, where she died in February 1980, three weeks before her thirty-first birthday. 

     

    Julie Robinson, Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs

     

  • Public Image, Private Lives: Family, Friends and Self in Photography

    Art Gallery of South Australia, 5 February 2016 – 18 September 2016
  • Carol Jerrems 1949 – 1980

    Carol's hospital room

    1979
    gelatin-silver photograph
    Accession no: 20134Ph85
  • Carol Jerrems 1949 – 1980

    Self portrait

    1979
    gelatin-silver photograph
    Accession no: 20134Ph86