American, 1897 - 1966
While still in his teens in Topeka, Adams studied with the portrait and mural painter George M. Stone. In 1916 he entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but his studies were interrupted in 1917 by World War I. When he returned to his studies in 1919, it was in New York at the Art Students League with Kenneth Hayes Miller and George Bridgman. That summer he studied with Andrew Dasburg in the Woodstock, New York, summer school, and then returned to New York for another year at the League under Maurice Sterne and Eugene Speicher. The next summer he returned to Woodstock and remained there for year until July 1921, when he left for France and Italy. It was while living in Paris that he received a letter from Dasburg inviting him to Santa Fe. In 1924 he settled in Taos, taking a studio near Walter Ufer, becoming, in 1926, the last member elected to the Taos Society of Artists before it was dissolved the following year. Adams' first major exhibition was at the Ferargil Gallery in New York in 1928.
In the 1930s Adams executed a number of public murals: Rural Free Delivery, post office, Goodland, Kansas, 1935; Ballet, theater lounge, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1936; Mountains and Yucca, post office, Deming, New Mexico, 1937.
Adams moved to Albuquerque in 1937, and the next year was appointed artist-in-residence at the University of New Mexico there. He painted four murals on the theme The Peoples of New Mexico for the university library. Upon the expiration of the temporary position, Adams was made a full member of the university faculty and remained until his retirement in 1963.
Under the influence of Dasburg, Adams worked in the manner of C‚zanne; post impressionism was the major factor in Adams's work for most of his career, with a tendency towards abstraction in his later work. While at Taos he painted Indian and Spanish subjects, portraits, and genre scenes. After he began teaching at the University of New Mexico his subject matter became more traditional, focusing primarily on nudes and landscapes.
In the 1930s Adams executed a number of public murals: Rural Free Delivery, post office, Goodland, Kansas, 1935; Ballet, theater lounge, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1936; Mountains and Yucca, post office, Deming, New Mexico, 1937.
Adams moved to Albuquerque in 1937, and the next year was appointed artist-in-residence at the University of New Mexico there. He painted four murals on the theme The Peoples of New Mexico for the university library. Upon the expiration of the temporary position, Adams was made a full member of the university faculty and remained until his retirement in 1963.
Under the influence of Dasburg, Adams worked in the manner of C‚zanne; post impressionism was the major factor in Adams's work for most of his career, with a tendency towards abstraction in his later work. While at Taos he painted Indian and Spanish subjects, portraits, and genre scenes. After he began teaching at the University of New Mexico his subject matter became more traditional, focusing primarily on nudes and landscapes.
