Robert Adams (1917-1984) - British Sculptor and Artist

A Post War British Sculptor, Designer and Constructivist

Sculptor and lithographer born in Northampton, educated at Hardingstone School, he studied art at Northampton School of Art, 1934-42 and at the RCA 1949-59. His first exhibition was at Gimpel Fils in 1947 and he continued to exhibit at home and in France, America, South America, Japan, Austria and Germany until 1979. His favourite materials included welded steel, bronze, wood, and stone. He also produced some lithographs as an extension of his sculptural work and was an instructor in sculpture at the Central School of Arts & Crafts, London, 1949-60 and also taught at Falmouth School of Art in the mid-1970's. In the 1950’s Adams was associated with Kenneth and Mary Martin and Adrian Heath and was active in the Constructionism movement.

Examples of his work are in the collections of the Metropole Arts Centre, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Tate Gallery, V&A, BM, ACGB, BC, GAC, MoMA New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo. His commissions included, work for the Festival of Britain in 1951, sculpture for the BP Building in London, and in 1967 sculpture for the New Customs House at Heathrow Airport. In 1952 Adams showed abstracted figures in wood and brass in the important exhibition, 'New Aspects of British Sculpture’ at the twenty-sixth Venice Biennale winning international recognition for the first time. In 1962 he had a solo exhibition at the thirty-first Venice Biennale and retrospective exhibitions were held at Ferens Art Gallery, Hull and Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1963.

Source: www.artbiogs.co.uk