Portrait of Anne Summers, 1974

Anne Summers AO (b. 1945), writer and feminist, became involved in women’s rights while studying at the University of Adelaide in the 1960s. In 1969 she became one of five women involved in founding the Women’s Liberation Movement in Australia. She then moved to Sydney and in 1973 was part of a cooperative that established Australia’s first refuge for victims of domestic violence. While studying for a doctorate at the University of Sydney, Summers commenced work on what became her first book, Damned Whores and God’s Police (1975), a landmark text in Australian feminism. Having worked as a journalist for several years, she was appointed head of the Commonwealth Government’s Office for the Status of Women in 1983; and later worked as an adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating. In New York from 1986 to 1992, Summers was editor-in-chief of Ms magazine; and later edited the Good Weekend. Her autobiography, Ducks on the pond, was published in 1999; and her book The lost mother: a story of art and love (2010) was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. In 2013 she published The Misogyny Factor, an analysis of the status of women in contemporary Australia.

These portraits by Carol Jerrems were taken in January 1974, at which time Summers was working intensely on her first book. Summers has said the portraits capture her anxiety about this project as well as the steeliness that enabled her to complete it. One of the images appeared in A Book About Australian Women (1974), which profiled women then at the forefront of activism and the arts.

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2012
© Ken Jerrems and the Estate of Lance Jerrems