Marion Adnams

About the artist

Marion Elizabeth Adnams was born in Derby on 3 December 1898 and died there on 24 October 1995 (Wikipedia). She studied modern languages at University College, Nottingham, graduating in 1919 (Wikipedia), and in the 1930s took evening classes at Derby School of Art, where she was taught by Alfred Bladen, a Derby artist who shared her interest in Surrealism (Marcelle Joseph Projects).

She taught art at Homelands Grammar School for Girls and later at Derby Diocesan Training College, where she became Head of Art (Wikipedia). She painted the surrealist works for which she is known between 1938 and 1970, placing apparently unconnected objects together in unfamiliar, often outdoor settings, some of them landscapes and landmarks in or near Derby (Wikipedia). She showed at the British Art Centre in London and in 1944 at the Modern Art Gallery, London (Wikipedia), but never joined any of the British Surrealist groups and exhibited mainly in the Midlands; she had a retrospective at the Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham, in 1971 and stopped painting around 1968 as her eyesight failed (Marcelle Joseph Projects).

Manchester Art Gallery bought her painting The Living Tree in 1939, and her work is also held by Salford Museums, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, with the largest public collection at Derby Museums Trust (Wikipedia). Derby Museum and Art Gallery held Marion Adnams: A Singular Woman in 2017 to 2018, and her work was included in British Surrealism at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2020 (Wikipedia). The Joseph Clark Collection holds Colloquy (1968), an oil on board (Joseph Clark Collection).

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Marion Adnams
2. Marcelle Joseph Projects: Marion Adnams
3. Joseph Clark Collection