Robert Adams (5 October 1917 – 5 April 1984) was an English sculptor and designer.Robert Adams: entry in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (subscription based) accessed 22 May 2011
/ref> 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 Reginald Cotterell Butler (28 April 1913 – 23 October 1981) was an English sculptor. He was born at Bridgefoot House, Buntingford, Hertfordshire to Frederick William Butler (1880–1937) and Edith (1880–1969), daughter of blacksm ...

Lynn Chadwick Lynn Russell Chadwick, (24 November 1914 – 25 April 2003) was an English sculptor and artist. Much of his work is semi-abstract sculpture in bronze or steel. His work is in the collections of MoMA in New York, the Tate in London and th ...

and

Bernard Meadows Bernard Meadows (19 February 1915 - 12 January 2005) was a British modernist sculptor. Meadows was Henry Moore's first assistant; then part of the Geometry of Fear school, a loose-knit group of British sculptors whose prominence was establishe ...

Education and early life

Adams attended the village school in

Hardingstone Hardingstone is a village in Northamptonshire, England. It is on the southern edge of Northampton, and now forms a suburb of the town. It is about from the town centre. The Newport Pagnell road (the B526, formerly part of the A50) separates ...

, Northamptonshire, now a suburb of the town of

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

. He lived there until 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 to 1946 he attended evening classes part-time in life drawing and painting at the

Northampton School of Art Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

. During the Second World War, Adams was a conscientious objector, but joined the Civil Defence as a fire warden.

Career

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. Musiktheater Im Revier Robert Adams

From 1949 until 1959 he taught at the

Central School of Art and Design The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...

in London. Whilst there he came into contact with

Victor Pasmore Edwin John Victor Pasmore, CH, CBE (3 December 190823 January 1998) was a British artist. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life Pasmore was born in Chelsham, Surrey, on 3 December 1908. He ...

and artists such as Kenneth Martin and

Mary Martin Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) was an American actress and singer. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles on stage over her career, including Nellie Forbush in '' South Pacific'' (194 ...

who were pursuing the development of Constructivist ideas in Britain. In the period 1950 to 1980 he was recognised as one of Britain's foremost abstract sculptors. His work was exhibited at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 1952 and again when he represented Britain with a retrospective occupying two galleries in 1962. Some of his works are in the

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

collection and the modern art in New York, Rome, and Turin, the

São Paulo Museum of Modern Art The São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, (Portuguese: Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, or MAM), is located in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo. Founded by Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho and Yolanda Penteado, and built in 1948, the museum is modelled on ...

and several other locations worldwide but he is virtually unknown in his home town. ''Apocalyptic Figure''Arts Council collection at the Southbank Centre
was commissioned by the

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

for the

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

in 1951. Some of his large-scale sculptures can be seen at The Custom House, London,

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...

Shell Mex House Shell Mex House, also known as 80 Strand, is a grade II listed building located at number 80 Strand in London, England. The building was opened in 1932 on the site of the Hotel Cecil and stands behind the original façade of the hotel, between ...

, London,Retrospective exhibition 2003
and the

Musiktheater im Revier Musiktheater im Revier (MiR) (Music Theatre in the Ruhr) is the venue for performing opera, operetta, musical theatre and ballet in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. It opened on 15 December 1959; it is listed since 1997 as a protected cultural monument. Th ...

, Gelsenkirchen, Germany. One of his works is in the

Contemporary Art Museum of Macedonia The Contemporary Art Museum ( Macedonian: Музеј на современата уметност) is one of the largest and most complete national institutions of North Macedonia. Located in the capital city of Skopje, the museum was founded in 1 ...

. He had a retrospective at the Northampton Art Gallery in 1971.University of East Anglia biography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Robert 1917 births 1983 deaths Artists from Northampton English sculptors English male sculptors Modern sculptors Academics of the Central School of Art and Design 20th-century British sculptors Geometry of Fear People from Hardingstone