"Twelve Yellow Roses"

This painting by Max Enkhardt, titled Twelve Yellow Roses, was created in 1974, during his sentence in Pentridge Prison. It ist painted on a double-sided canvas — a necessity due to limited art materials available inside prison.

Like other works made through the prison’s hobby programme, it was officially recorded and released to visitors on collection cards signed by both the prisoner and prison staff.

A card shows that it was completed and authorised for collection on 25 November 1974.

In 1978, while still incarcerated, Enkhardt appeared in the finals of the Moomba public speaking award. Reported in The Age on 11 March 1978, he spoke about optimism, friendship, and the hope he found in painting: “I want to give everyone rainbows of hope and warmth”.

Signed ME

Date of creation: 1974

Material: oil on canvas, painted on both sides

Measurements: 25½ × 19½ inches

Held in Sarah Park Collection.

Max established a friendship with the parents of the current owner while he was still in Pentridge Prison, and he gifted Twelve Yellow Roses to them.

You can now call at the Front Gate and take delivery of the painting

- do not leave his for t00 long because is will not keep - pictures get lost that ways .

The painting I call "Twelve yellow Roses.", size 25½ × 19½

may is give you much pleasure — as it does me.

Sincerely Max Enkhardt

23 XII 1974

Max Herbert Enkhardt (1910–1979)

Max Herbert Enkhardt was born near the border between Denmark and Germany and emigrated to Melbourne in 1928. He worked as a sailor, art dealer, and lecturer before his imprisonment in 1969. In November of that year he shot dead his wife Anna, who had been severely disabled after a car accident the previous year.

He pleaded not guilty, claiming it was a mercy killing, but was found guilty of murder.

On 5 August 1970 he was sentenced to death. In November 1970 the Victorian Executive Council commuted his sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment.

Whilst in Pentridge Prison, Enkhardt took up painting. In 1974 he won first prize in an art competition and also received the Alfred Brook Memorial Prize for his painting Castle in Old Denmark.

Max was later noted for reaching the finals of the Moomba public speaking award in 1978. After serving almost nine years, he was released in August 1978.

In September 1979 Max was struck by a car while crossing Toorak Road and died soon afterwards.