A bold new exhibition featuring two of Josephine Muntz Adams’ best-loved works shines a spotlight on the pioneering female artists who reshaped the story of modern art.
Dangerously Modern is the first major exhibition dedicated to the international careers of Australian women artists at the turn of the twentieth century. Featuring more than 200 works by 50 artists, it traces an extraordinary chapter in art history – one where women travelled from Australia to Europe and beyond, forging paths through major art schools, salons and movements, often in defiance of the social expectations of their time.
As much about cultural change as artistic experimentation, Dangerously Modern challenges old ideas of what success looked like for women artists. It also restores these often-overlooked figures to their rightful place in the international modernist story.
Josephine Muntz Adams is represented in the exhibition by two key works: Care and Gypsy Belle.
Care, painted in Paris during her time at the Académie Colarossi, is a quietly arresting portrait of a seated woman holding an open letter. Rendered in the style of French Realism, it captures an intimate moment of introspection. The work received critical acclaim when shown at the 1893 Salon de la Société des Artistes Français, and was later acquired by the Queensland Art Gallery – the first work by an Australian artist to enter the collection.
Gypsy Belle shows a different facet of Muntz Adams’s portraiture: vivid, character-rich, and painted with her trademark confidence. Together, the two works reveal her range as a portraitist and her ability to evoke presence and depth without spectacle.
Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940 exhibited at the Art Gallery of South Australia from May–September 2025 and the Art Gallery of New South Wales from October 2025–February 2026.
