Norman Adams RA, Sea Rocks,
an abstract oil painting on canvas.
33in (84cm) x 30in (76cm)

sold

Norman Adams (1927 - 2005)
Born: 9 February 1927, London, UK
Elected ARA: 20 April 1967
Elected RA: 5 June 1972
Category of Membership: Painter

Biography:
Norman Adams studied at Harrow School of Art from 1940 to 1946
and subsequently at the Royal College of Art from 1948 to 1951
where he was awarded the Bronze Medal for Painting.
His teaching career began in the 1950s when he taught part-time at St Alban's Art School.
He then went on to become Head of Painting at Manchester College of Art from 1962 to 1970,
visiting tutor at Leeds University from 1973 to 1976
and Professor of Painting at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1981 to 1986.
He was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy in 1986,
and upon retiring from this position after nine years,
he was appointed the Academys Professor of Painting Emeritus in 1995.

Adams’s first solo exhibition was held in 1952 at Gimpel Fils,
London and biennial one-man shows were subsequently held from 1953 at Roland, Browse and Delbanco.
1953 also marked the year in which he designed the stage set and costumes for 'A Mirror of Witches'
produced by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, and again for the Sadler's Wells production of Saudades in 1955.

Commissions have played a large part in Adams’s career,
his first being the painting of a mural for Broad Lane Comprehensive School,
Coventry in 1954.
In 1967 he was commissioned by the Oxford University Press to illustrate parts of the Old Testament.
He went on to paint murals for St Anselm’s Church, Kennington, London in 1971
and to make 14 ceramic panels of the Stations of the Cross for the Roman Catholic Church
at Coffee Hall in Milton Keynes in 1975.
More recently, in 1994 Adams received another commission for the Fourteen Stations of the Cross,
this time in oils, for St Mary’s Church, Mulberry Street, Manchester.
These were installed in November 1995 having first been exhibited in the Sackler Galleries at the Royal Academy.

A retrospective of Adams’s work was held in the Diploma Galleries at the Royal Academy in 1988
and he has recently had a series of solo exhibitions at the Beaux Arts Galleries, both in London and Bath.
A 75th birthday exhibition of his work is planned for the Friends’Room at the Royal Academy in 2002.

Norman Adams was elected Royal Academician in 1972 (ARA 1967)
and Honorary Member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1987.
He lived and worked in London and Yorkshire.

Recent Solo Exhibitions:

2001 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
North House Gallery, Manningtree, Essex
2000 Linton Court Gallery, Settle, North Yorkshire
1998 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
1997 Beaux Arts Gallery, Bath
1996 Beaux Arts Gallery, London
1995 Royal Academy of Arts (Sackler Galleries)
1994 Dean Clough, Halifax, Yorkshire
1992/3 Christopher Hull Gallery, London
Bruton Street Gallery, London

Work in Public Collections:

Abbot Hall, Kendal
Aberdeen City Art Gallery
Carlisle City Art Gallery
Cartwright Hall, Bradford
Edinburgh Museum of Modern Art
Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon
Hatton Gallery, Newcastle
Leeds City Art Gallery
Leeds University
Southampton City Art Gallery
St Martins College, Lancaster
Tate Gallery, London
Wakefield City Art Gallery

Information supplied by the Royal Acadamy

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