Josephine Muntz Adams

In 1861, Jane Jamieson married Thomas Bingham Muntz who after his arrival in Victoria and two years on the goldfields without success, had taken a farm on the Barfold Estate, about 11 miles north of Kyneton. Their first child, Josephine Margaret, was born the next year. Nine siblings were to follow.

The family moved to Prahran, where Thomas Muntz then held the position of town surveyor,{{Cite news |date=1871-09-20 |title=TOWN COUNCIL. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5855397 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Argus}} then Civil Engineer, and supervised the building of the Coode Canal.

{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89418176 |title=OBITUARY. |newspaper=Bendigo Advertiser |volume=LVI |issue=16,592 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=8 October 1908 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}Hammond, V and Peers, J 1992, Completing the picture: women artists and the Heidelberg era, Artmoves, Hawthorn East, Victoria, p. 55-58. Her mother Jane supported the suffragette movement, and her younger sister is noted as an early female science graduate of the University of Melbourne.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article244747780 |title=University of Melbourne. |newspaper=The Herald |issue=2393 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 December 1879 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Muntz Adams enrolled aged fourteen at the Prahran School of Design where in 1877 she was awarded first prize for her landscape in the senior division awards,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article109632309 |title=Prahran School Of Design. |newspaper=The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran And South Yarra Guardian |issue=780 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=20 January 1877 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}} and a second at the state-wide Schools of Design Awards, Ballarat,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199839050 |title=The Schools Of Design Exhibition. |newspaper=The Ballarat Star |volume=XXII |issue=174 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 July 1877 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}} and the Mayor's Special Prize for Oil painting.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5960644 |title=School Speech Days. |newspaper=The Argus (Melbourne) |issue=10,768 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=22 December 1880 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia}} In October 1879 she passed her Matriculation at the University of Melbourne,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article150170612 |title=University of Melbourne. |newspaper=Geelong Advertiser |issue=10,118 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=25 December 1879 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}} and in December qualified for admission into the civil service.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article143018521 |title=Civil Service Examination. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=XXVII |issue=717 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=27 December 1879 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=21 |via=National Library of Australia}} Instead, Josephine, who was also a gifted pianist, opted to train at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School under George Folingsby in 1882 and 1884-1889, studying with Clara Southern, Jane Sutherland, May Vale, Lucy Walker, Abbey Altson, David Davies, Frank Powne, Emily A. Thomas,{{Cite web |title=Emily A. Thomas |url=https://dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/art-index/artist/1702/ |access-date=15 April 2025 |website=State Library of NSW Art Index}} Henrietta Irvine, Livington Evans, Sarah Collis, and Arthur Streeton.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9202147 |title=Our Ladies Melbourne Letter |newspaper=The Mercury |volume=LII |issue=5,861 |location=Tasmania, Australia |date=1 December 1888 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{Cite book |last=Burke |first=Janine |title=Australian Women Artists, 1840-1940 |publisher=Greenhouse Publications |year=1980 |location=Collingwood, Vic}} Care, painted in 1887 as her major student exercise was reportedly the first purchase of an Australian artist's work by the Queensland National Art Gallery, Brisbane,{{Cite web |title=About (Mistress) Muntz Adams |url=https://www.invaluable.com/artist/0iir2y8c5z/#ARTIST_DETAIL_INFO |access-date=15 April 2025 |website=Invaluable}}{{Cite news |date=1898-08-25 |title=National Art Gallery: Trustees' Report |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/176461126 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Telegraph}} and her Weary, a tired mother watching over her sick child gained second prize in the 1888 exhibition of the NGV School.

File:Newcombe women students.jpg

Josephine traveled to Europe to study, during 1890 to 1896, under leading exponents of contemporary French and English Impressionism and portraiture. She toured the continental galleries,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145860157 |title=Personal. |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=491 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 November 1894 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}} and enrolled at the Académie Colarossi in Paris, and in England at Herkomer's Art School, where she felt she made most progress and gained most 'real knowledge' among over 200 other artists including Australian students Kathleen O'Connor, Blamire Young and the Tasmanian Mary Augusta Walker who worked in the surrounds of the village Bushey. Herkomer praised her work "as more like that of a man than of a woman."{{Cite news |date=1897-09-24 |title=Mr. Ellery's Portrait. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145930842 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Table Talk}}{{Cite book |last=Greer |first=Germaine |title=The Obstacle Race : The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work |publisher=Farrar Straus. |year=1979 |location=New York |pages=358, n.16}} Her work was hung in the Paris Salons of 1892 and 1893.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article144500547 |title=An Australian Abroad. |newspaper=The Prahran Telegraph |volume=XXXII |issue=444 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=24 June 1893 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}

On her return to Australia, Muntz exhibited in October 1896 at the New Zealand Chambers 483 Collins Street Melbourne, the show favourably reviewed by James Smith in The Age,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193443159 |title=Art Notes. |newspaper=The Age |issue=12,978 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=3 October 1896 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}} also in The Australasian,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139731641 |title=Social Notes. |newspaper=The Australasian |volume=LXI |issue=1592 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=3 October 1896 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=39 |via=National Library of Australia}} and was the subject of a profile and a critique of her work in Table Talk, which praised her talent for portrait painting in discussion of four works highlighting her skill; the strong modelling and expressive accuracy evident in her portrait of the Hon. Duncan Gillies, her depiction of Mr. Charles Young (Victorian MLA for Kyneton) capturing his honesty and warmth with striking realism, and her full-length portrait of Miss Carrie Chambers, ambitious for its delicate skin tones and fine textures in clothing. Her portrait of Mrs. Curle Smith was considered advanced in its successful use of yellow "which few artists dare to paint" against a grey background. Another work, Be Careful, of an elderly peasant woman, powerfully conveyed a life of hardship. The article concludes that additional portraits, flower pieces, and Cornish landscapes, "prove Miss Muntz's capacity for hard and continuous work, and at the same time make her future a matter of much interest."{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145931675 |title=Art and Artists. |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=588 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=2 October 1896 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Muntz departed again for Europe on the SS Innamincka in August 1897.{{Cite news |date=1897-08-09 |title=Shipping Intelligence |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/190654387 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Age}}

On 25 August 1898 at her parents home in Malvern, Josephine Muntz married Brisbane businessman Samuel Howard Adams, who had migrated form Portglenone, county Antrim, Ireland. She was aged 36 and already an established artist.{{Cite news |date=1898-09-14 |title=Family Notices |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/9851408 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Argus}} The couple left Victoria for Brisbane, Queensland, and lived at Adaroni, in the Jubilee Estate, around Fernberg in Ithaca,{{Cite news |date=1901-04-13 |title=Woman's World. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19120981 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Brisbane Courier}} where he stood as Labour candidate for the Balonne electorate{{Cite news |date=1902-02-11 |title=BALONNE. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19136627 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Brisbane Courier}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19228912 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Brisbane Courier |volume=LIX |issue=14,100 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=23 March 1903 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}} and she continued to paint, teach and exhibit;{{Cite news |date=1898-07-27 |title=Art Society. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/176462574 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Telegraph}}{{Cite news |date=1900-12-08 |title=A Queensland Artist. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19043403 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Brisbane Courier}} her life-size portrait of R. J. L. Ellery, Government Astronomer, was presented to him at an August 1902 meeting of the Surveyors' Institute.{{Cite news |date=1902-08-30 |title=Melbourne Lady's Letter. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/71492336 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Australian Town and Country Journal}} She also visited her brother in Coolgardie, Western Australia, and painted there, too.

Muntz's mother died in 1902,{{Cite news |date=1902-01-07 |title=The Gatton College. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19153922 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Brisbane Courier}} and then her 37-year-old husband Samuel Adams who, having suffered for some months previous from kidney stones suffered a fatal seizure, dying at home on 20 March 1903.{{Cite news |date=1903-03-23 |title=Family Notices |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/19228912 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Brisbane Courier}} An obituary was published in the The Worker noting his support for the labour movement and that his funeral was attended by representatives of The Worker, the Australian Labour Federation, Central Political Executive, the Social-Democratic Vanguard, and the Queensland Art Society.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70897667 |title=Death of Mr. S. H. Adams. |newspaper=The Worker |volume=13 |issue=621 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=28 March 1903 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Josephine subsequently returned to her home state of Victoria where her father died in 1908, and from 1905-1908 was elected a council member of the Victorian Artists' Society (with which she exhibited 1896–1915) and was re-elected for 1912-1913.{{Cite book |last1=McCulloch |first1=Alan |title=The new McCulloch's encyclopedia of Australian art |last2=McCulloch |first2=Susan |last3=McCulloch Childs |first3=Emily |date=2006 |publisher=Aus Art Editions in association with The Miegunyah Press |isbn=978-0-522-85317-9 |edition=4th |location=Fitzroy, Vic |pages=706–7}} Burke notes that "in 1905, the year that May Vale, ‘Jo’ Sweatman, Josephine Muntz-Adams and Clara Southern were council members, the number of female exhibitors at the Victorian Artists Society winter exhibition was fifty-seven out of a total of 100 artists. In 1917 she returned to live and work in Brisbane for five years, until 1922. While there she was appointed part-time teacher of freehand drawing and painting at the Central Technical College, Brisbane,{{Cite news |date=1916-12-23 |title=Teacher Of Drawing. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/176373902 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Telegraph}}{{Cite news |date=1920-09-10 |title=Technical College. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/180554104 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Telegraph |pages=7}} resumed her contact with the Royal Queensland Art Society, known then as the Queensland Art Society, and served on the management committee for three yearsBradbury, Keith and Cooke, Glenn R (1988) "Thorns & Petals, 100 years of the Royal Queensland Art Society" p 203-204 ISBN 0-7316-3596-5 and associated with the Brisbane Lyceum Club at Bible House, George Street.{{cite news |date=1 November 1921 |title=Hallowe'en At The Lyceum Club. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20514247 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |newspaper=The Brisbane Courier |location=Queensland, Australia |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia |issue=19,900}} She resigned from the technical college in mid-1922 and returned to Melbourne.{{Cite news |date=1922-05-12 |title=Education Department |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/179012511 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Daily Standard |pages=2}}

Professional success led to financial success; Muntz-Adams' work sold for high prices.Hammond, V 1993, A century of Australian women artists, 1840-1940, Deutscher Fine Art, Malvern, Victoria, p. 15. By 1911 she had purchased newly established real estate: lots 5 and 6 in Tollington Avenue in the inner city suburb of East Melbourne. These she rented out, whilst she lived in nearby lot 9, which she kept until her death in 1949.Stonnington History Centre, 2000,‘’5 Tollington Avenue East Melbourne’’, viewed 23 March 2020, https://stonnington.spydus.com/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FULL/WPAC/ARCENQ/9102675/22910393,1.

In 1930 a Brisbane Courier journalist remarked that a critic reviewing the annual exhibition of the Victorian Artists' Society identified "as one of the most distinguished works in the collection, a self-portrait by Mrs. Muntz-Adams."Moore, W 1930, 'Art and Artists', The Brisbane Courier, 8 November, p. 18, viewed 23 March 2020, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article21602209.

Josephine's last commission was a life-size portrait of Archbishop Duhig, of Brisbane,{{Cite news |date=1949-11-22 |title=Woman artist dead at 87 |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49714148 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Courier-Mail |pages=5}} though she suffered poor health and failing eyesight in her later years. In 1943 a retrospective exhibition was held at the Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne.{{Cite book |last1=Robb |first1=Gwenda |title=Concise dictionary of Australian artists |last2=Smith |first2=Elaine |publisher=Melbourne Univ. Press |year=1993 |isbn=9780522844788 |location=Carlton, Vic. |pages=186}}

After her death in Victoria, at the age of 87,{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article189473609 |title=Family Notices |newspaper=The Age |issue=29,506 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=21 November 1949 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}} Muntz Adams was buried with her husband in Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane.{{Cite news |date=1949-11-25 |title=Late Funeral Notices |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49694108 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Courier-Mail |pages=5}}

Muntz Street in the Canberra suburb of Chisholm is named in her honour.{{Cite web|title=Schedule 'B' National Memorials Ordinance 1928–1972 Street Nomenclature List of Additional Names with Reference to Origin: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. Special (National: 1977–2012) – 8 Feb 1978|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240628906|last=|first=|date=|website=Trove|page=13|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-04-02}}

• 1896, October: solo exhibition, New Zealand Chambers, 483 Collins Street Melbourne
• 1896, October: Victorian Artists Society group exhibition{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145931475 |title=Victorian Artists' Exhibition. |newspaper=Table Talk |issue=591 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=23 October 1896 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=16 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• 1897: Queensland International Exhibition, receiving a first prize in Class 2 of the Fine Art sections for her portrait in oils{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3655477 |title=International Exhibition. |newspaper=The Brisbane Courier |volume=LIV |issue=12,341 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=2 August 1897 |accessdate=15 April 2025 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• 1897, September: Alice Chapman's studio, New Zealand Chambers, 483 Collins Street Melbourne
• 1898, July: Tenth exhibition of the Queensland Art Society
• 1899: Greater Britain Exhibition, Earl's Court, LondonGreater Britain Exhibition, 1899, Greater Britain exhibition at London, 1899 : progress report of the Commissioners for Victoria to the Premier, Government Printer, Melbourne. Gold medal, awarded to Josephine M. Adams for [http://Parliament.vic.gov.au/premiers_portraits/2206-duncan-gillies-portrait Portrait in oil of the Hon. Duncan Gillies]
• 1902, November: Albert Hall, Brisbane{{Cite news |date=1902-11-22 |title=By Comrade Mary |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/70898292 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Worker}}
• 1905: Victorian Artists's Society winter exhibition
• 1906, July: Victorian Artists's Society Jubilee Exhibition{{Cite news |date=1906-07-19 |title=Victorian Artists' Exhibition. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/175376873 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=Punch}}
• 1907: Annual exhibition, Victorian Artists Society, included George Watson, M.F.H."Melbourne chatter", The Bulletin, 18 July 1907, vol. 28, no. 1431.
• 1907: Australian Exhibition of Women's Work, Exhibition Buildings, Carlton, Victoria
• 1916, May: Victorian Artists Society annual group exhibition{{Cite news |date=1916-05-09 |title=VICTORIAN ARTISTS' SOCIETY. |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2097019 |access-date=2025-04-15 |work=The Argus |pages=8}}
• 1930: Annual Exhibition of the Victorian Artists’ Society, Self portrait
• 1943: Athenaeum Gallery (Melbourne), retrospective solo exhibitionMuntz-Adams, Josephine & Athenaeum Gallery (Melbourne, Vic.) 1943,Exhibition of paintings by J. M. Muntz Adams, Athenaeum Gallery, Melbourne.

• 2002: 90th birthday exhibition, Lyceum Club, Melbourne
• 2007: Portrait of an Exhibition: Centenary celebration for the first Australian exhibition of women’s work 1907, Castlemaine Art Gallery{{Cite book |author1=Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum |author2=Hannon, Geoff |author3=McKay, Kirsten |author4=Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum |title=Portrait of an exhibition : centenary celebration of the First Australian Exhibition of Women's Work 1907 |publication-date=2007 | publisher=The Museum |isbn=978-0-9757388-5-6}}
• 2022–23: Beating About the Bush: A new lens on Australian impressionism, Ballarat Art Gallery
• 2025: The School of Paris: Australian artists abroad, Bendigo Art Gallery

• National Gallery Victoria{{Cite web |title=Josephine Muntz Adams |url=https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/1982/ |access-date=15 April 2025 |website=NGV Collection online}}
• Queensland Art Gallery{{Cite web |title=Müntz-Adams, Josephine 1861 - 1949 |url=https://collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au/creators/muntz-adams-josephine |access-date=15 April 2025 |website=QAGOMA Collection}}
• Castlemaine Art Museum{{Cite web |title=Josephine Muntz-Adams, Untitled (Landscape) |url=https://collection.castlemainegallery.com/objects/560/untitled-landscape |access-date=2021-09-18 |website=Castlemaine Art Museum Collection Online |language=en}}
• Bendigo Art Gallery{{Cite web |title=Muntz Adams, Josephine |url=https://collection.bendigoartgallery.com.au/persons/84 |access-date=15 April 2025 |website=Bendigo Art Gallery Collection}}
• Art Gallery of Ballarat
• Art Gallery of Western Australia{{Cite web |title=Josephine Muntz-Adams |url=https://collection.artgallery.wa.gov.au/persons/7910/josephine-muntz-adams |access-date=15 April 2025 |website=Art Gallery of Western Australia Collections}}
• Benalla Art Gallery{{Cite web |title=Storm Approaching |url=https://benallaartgallery.com.au/benallacollection/collection-view/1355646/ |access-date=15 April 2025 |website=The Benalla Art Gallery Collection}}
• Parliament House, Brisbane
• Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra
• Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House, Canberra
• Parliament House, Melbourne

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - 4cc4a859d6.jpg|A New Friend, oil on canvas laid on board

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - 40949aeae6.jpg|Study for Sleep. Angeloro family collection. Oil on Canvas 16.5x24.5cm

File:Josephine Margaret Muntz Adams Be careful.jpg|Be careful, ca. 1893, Oil on canvas 83 x 69.3 cm, Queensland Art Gallery

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - be94f45951.jpg|Venice, watercolour on paper, 10 x 15cm

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - 1ec40c6aa8.jpg|Reclining Nude, oil on canvas on composition board 39.5 x 61.5 cm

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - e6d49cc8f2.jpg|Interior with Woman Reading, Oil on Board 30.5x23.5cm

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - 29a4eb3b62.jpg|Portrait of a Resting Girl, oil on canvas, 35 x 24.5cm

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - a10480b8bd.jpg|Bushland, oil on canvas, 39.5 x 19cm

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - 29b4cb18ba.jpg|Portrait of a Lady, oil on canvas 56 x 47cm

File:Josephine Muntz Adams - c11490a82b.jpg|Standing Nude, oil on canvas on cardboard 76.5 x 23.0 cm

{{reflist}}

• [https://josephinemuntzadams.art/ Official website: https://josephinemuntzadams.art]

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Category:1862 births

Category:1949 deaths

Category:Australian women painters

Category:19th-century Australian women artists

Category:19th-century Australian artists

Category:20th-century Australian women artists

Category:20th-century Australian artists

Category:People from Kyneton

Category:Artists from Victoria (state)

Category:National Gallery of Victoria Art School alumni

Category:Académie Colarossi alumni

Category:Australian portrait painters