We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Josephine Müntz-Adams / Australia 1861–1949 / Care c.1893 / Oil on canvas on composition board / 83 x 69.3cm / Purchased 1898 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
Josephine Müntz-AdamsCare c.1893
On Display: QAG, Gallery 10
Care c.1893 has special significance to QAGOMA, being the first painting by an Australian artist to be purchased for the Collection.
Painted in Europe when Josephine Müntz-Adams was studying there, it was shown in the Paris Salon of 1893, where it had the honour of being hung ‘on the line’ — with its centre roughly level with the viewers’ eye — a position reserved for the most worthy entries. Care was also shown in the Queensland International Exhibition in 1897, during which a reviewer described it as ‘a lifelike presentment of an old woman reading a letter, evidently of evil import, probably, telling the evil courses of a much loved son’.1
While there has been debate about the sitter’s identity (likely the artist’s mother), the sentimental appeal of the painting endures.
Endnotes:
1. ‘Art Gallery of the Exhibition: Second Notice’, Queenslander, 29 May 1897.
Born at Barfold near Kyneton, Victoria, in 1861, Josephine Müntz-Adams was the eldest of ten children born to surveyor Thomas Bingham Müntz and his wife, Jane (née Jamison). Müntz-Adams studied in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, in Paris at the Académie Julian and the Académie Delecluse, and in England under German-born portraitist Sir Hubert von Herkomer.
In 1898, Müntz-Adams was awarded a gold medal for portraiture at the Greater Britain Exhibition. She married Samuel Howard Adams that same year, and they lived in Brisbane, where she taught painting at the Brisbane Technical College from 1917 to 1922.
Müntz-Adams is best known for her oil portraits and figure studies. Her work is also represented in the National Gallery of Victoria and Geelong Gallery.
Discussion Questions
1. What type of news do you think this lady has received in the letter? Taking note of her facial expression, write down a few plausible scenarios.
2. Why do you think the work is titled Care?
Classroom Activities
1. Taking on the role of the lady in the painting, write a response to the letter you think she has received.
2. Letter writing has almost entirely been replaced by emails. List the pros and cons of email versus letter writing. Use your lists to record your thoughts about the importance of letter writing.