Robert Adams (sculptor and designer)
| Robert Adams | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Robert Adams 5 October 1917 Far Cotton, Northampton |
| Died | 5 April 1984 (aged 67) Great Maplestead, Essex |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Northampton School of Art |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Movement | Modernism, Abstract art |
| Spouse(s) | Patricia (née Devine) |
Robert Adams (5 October 1917 – 5 April 1984) was an English sculptor and designer. Whilst not widely known outside of artistic circles, he was nonetheless regarded as one of the foremost sculptors of his generation. In a critical review of a retrospective mounted by the Gimpel Fils gallery in London in 1993, Brian Glasser of Time Out magazine described Adams as, 'the neglected genius of post-war British sculpture', a sentiment echoed by Tim Hilton in the Sunday Independent, who ranked Adams' work above that of his contemporaries, Ken Armitage, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick and Bernard Meadows.
Adams attended the village school in Hardingstone, Northamptonshire, now a suburb of the town of Northampton. He lived there til 1951. He left school at age 14 and did various manual jobs, firstly as a van-boy for a printer and later with the agricultural engineering company, Cooch & Sons where experience gained in crafting metals proved useful in his later artistic creations.
From 1937-1946 he attended evening classes part-time in life drawing and painting at the Northampton School of Art.
During the Second World War, Adams was a conscientious objector, but joined the Civil Defence as a fire warden.
Some of his first sculptures were exhibited in London between 1942 and 1944 as part of group shows by artists working for Civil Defence
In April 1946 he exhibited fourteen of his early oil portraits in the Northampton Public Library.
Between 23 November 1947 and 3 January 1948, he held his first one-man exhibition at Gimpel Fils Gallery, 84 Duke Street, London.
From 1949-59 he taught at the Central School of Art and Design in London. Whilst there he came into contact with Victor Pasmore and artists such as Kenneth Martin and Mary Martin who were pursuing the development of Constructivist ideas in Britain.
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