Norman Adams - A Retrospective Exhibition

Norman Adams

Retrospective Exhibition

This September, Low Wood Bay will be displaying the first exhibition of paintings in the Atrium, with works by Norman Adams RA (1927 -2005). His landscapes reflect the atmosphere (and the weather), as much as they show a landscape. His larger works often reflect world events. Phaeton Passes is as much about global warming as it is about a field of sunflowers.

Norman Adams (1927-2005) was born in Walthamstow, London.

He studied at Harrow School of Art, where he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art.

His first solo exhibition was at the Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, in 1952.

In 1955, Norman and his wife Anna, also an artist and writer, bought a house at Horton-in-Ribblesdale, North Yorkshire. The house near Pen-y-ghent was Norman and Anna’s and their two son’s family home.

Norman was appointed Head of Painting at Manchester College of Art from 1962-1970. Visiting tutor at Leeds University from 1973-1976 and Professor of Painting at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1981-1986. In 1986 he was elected Keeper of the Royal Academy, living in the Keeper's House from 1986 - 95, and appointed the Academy’s Professor of Painting Emeritus in 1995.

An exhibition of his work was held in the main Royal Academy galleries in 1988. That exhibition had the title: Colour Chart of A Way, highlighting Norman’s reputation as a superb colourist.

Norman’s work is known by many for his landscape watercolours, he was however a versatile artist and in the 1950s designed stage sets and costumes for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, and for Sadler’s Wells. Other major commissions include: murals for St Anselm’s Church Kennington, London and the commission he considered his major work: The Stations of the Cross, for St Mary’s Church, Mulberry Street, Manchester.

His paintings are in many private and over forty public collections in the United Kingdom, including the Tate Gallery London.