Terry Adkins
| Terry Adkins | |
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| Born |
Terry Roger Adkins May 9, 1953 Washington, D.C. |
| Died | February 8, 2014 Brooklyn, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Fisk University (B.S.), Illinois State University (M.S.), University of Kentucky (M.F.A.) |
| Known for | American artist, Professor of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania |
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Terry Roger Adkins (May 9, 1953 – February 8, 2014) was an American artist. He was Professor of Fine Arts in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Washington, D.C.
Adkins was born in Washington on May 9, 1953, into a musical household. His father, Robert, a teacher, sang and played the organ; his mother, Doris Jackson, a nurse, was an amateur clarinetist and pianist.
As a young man, Adkins planned to be a musician, but in college he found himself drawn increasingly to visual art. He earned a B.S. in printmaking from Fisk University in Nashville, followed by an M.S. in the field from Illinois State University and an M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Kentucky.
He led the Lone Wolf Recital Corps that premiered works at ICA London, Rote Fabrik, Zurich, New World Symphony, Miami, P.S.1 MOMA, and ICA Philadelphia.
Adkins was an interdisciplinary artist whose practice included sculpture, performance, video, and photography. His artworks were often inspired by, dedicated to, or referred to musicians or musical instruments; specific installations and exhibitions were sometimes labeled "recitals." Sometimes, these arrangements of sculptures were "activated" in performances by Adkins' collaborative performance group, the Lone Wolf Recital Corps.
Many of his works draw from the biographies of little known historical figures; his 2011 exhibition Nutjuitok (Polar Star) is based on the life of a black Arctic explorer named Matthew Henson who reached the North Pole with Robert Peary at the turn of the 20th century. In other cases, Adkins' works focus on obscure details in the lives of seminal figures such as the African American writer, activist and sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, whose famous speech "Socialism and the American Negro" (1960) is invoked in the 2003-2008 installation Darkwater Record.
Adkins died of heart failure in Brooklyn, New York, in February 2014; he was 60 years old.
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