Patrick William Adam

PATRICK WILLIAM ADAM RSA

Edinburgh 1854 - 1929 North Berwick

Born in Edinburgh, the son of a well-known lawyer, Adam trained at the Royal Scottish Academy under George Paul Chalmers and William McTaggart, and won the Maclaine Watters medal in 1878. He exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy from 1872-1916, of which he became an Associate in 1878 and a full member in 1897, at the Royal Academy from 1878-1928, and with the Society of Eight, of which he was a founder member, in 1912.

Adam began his career as a portraitist but renounced this profession in order to pursue his love for landscape painting and genre. Between 1896-1897 he painted a series of winter landscapes recording the variegated effects of snow with subtlety and freshness. He visited Italy in 1889 and was charmed by Venice where he painted several works, including The Ducal Palace, now in the Aberdeen Art Gallery.

In 1908, Adam moved to Ardilea in North Berwick and was greatly inspired by the surrounding scenery. There he conceived the idea of painting interiors, a theme on which he concentrated for the rest of his life. These included domestic interiors of his own home and of neighbouring houses of historic and artistic interest; he also painted civic interiors such as The Signet Library, Edinburgh, of which there is a version in the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.