Albert Adams (ne Arthur Albert Hugh Adams) was born of mixed African Indian heritage in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1929. In 1953, Adams left South Africa's increasingly discriminatory racial policies for London, England, arriving on a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Fine Art. After graduating in 1956, he won a Bavarian State Scholarship to study printmaking at the Munich Academy of Arts. In 1957, he travelled to Salzburg, Austria, to apprentice with Oskar Kokoschka. A critically acclaimed and pioneering South African expressionist artist, Albert Adams, died in London, England, in 2006.
Painter Albert Adams (ne Arthur Albert Hugh Adams) was born of mixed heritage in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1929: his father was an Indian immigrant to South Africa, and his mother was mixed African and white, classified under the South African apartheid regime as 'Coloured'. By 1933, Adams' parents were no longer together, and his mother moved with her son to Cape Town, where Adams spent his formative years. He attended Arsenal Road Primary School, near the naval port in Simon's Town, a vibrant multiracial school that educated children from all ethnicities together. However, with the growing monopoly of the National Party White government administration, all schools that opposed the racial divide were eventually closed under apartheid's 'racial policies' (Postlethwayt, Attwell and Dugmore Ström, 2014, p.121). Adams' secondary school, Livingstone High School (LHS) in Claremont, Cape Town, was segregated to include only Black, Coloured, and Indian children; however, his time at LHS encouraged his creativity to flourish. Senior staff, notably the school's head and principal art teacher, Mr Esterhuysen, took an interest in Adam's paintings and drawings and strongly supported him in developing his skills (South African History Online, 2011). Adams graduated from LHS in 1944, with a National Senior Certificate and aimed to further his training at Michaelis School of Fine Art (MFSA). Despite his talent, Adams faced hostile rejection due to racial segregation and overt discrimination; the prestigious MFSA, a white-majority institution, did not allow Blacks or non-whites to enrol. Adams later earned a teacher-training degree from Hewat Teacher Training College, open only to Coloureds (Robertson and Chisholm, 2022, p.45). Nevertheless, he challenged the repugnant discriminatory racial divisions, becoming Head of the National Union of South African Students' anti-apartheid movement and confronted the agonies of the pervasive racial discrimination in his artwork.
While Adams was still at Hewat, he earned a modest living as a sign-writer (Darwent, 2012, p.34). However, a chance encounter with Baron Rudolf von Freiling and Siegfried Eick, close German friends of the South African-based, German Jewish expressionist artist, Irma Stern, who admired his sketches (notably Head of Christ), led to an assoication and friendship, which propelled his ambitions toward a professional art career. Charles Darwent, interviewing Adams' former partner, Edward Glennon, describes 'a German client with his Jewish partner, a refugee from Hitler's Germany', who 'recognised Adams talent' (Darwent, 2012, p.36). and who would strategically assist Adams in gaining a place at the Slade School of Fine Art. Adams seized the opportunity to leave South Africa and the demeaning limitations of the apartheid regime to travel overseas for specialist art training.
In 1953, Adams arrived in London, England on a scholarship to the Slade, graduating around.1956. Between 1956 and 1957, he was awarded a Bavarian State Scholarship to study printmaking at the Munich Academy of Arts. He then spent the summer of 1957 in Salzburg, Austria, studying under the renowned expressionist painter, Oskar Kokoschka, before returning to London. Adams' subsequent work defined him as a master pioneer of South African expressionism. His themes recall the dehumanisation and brutality of South African apartheid in challenging works such as Ape with a Flag on a Skeleton Figure (2004). A black ink etching. It depicts a white-masked, ogre, perched on the back of a crawling skeletal figure, crippled, distorted, and oppressed into unbearable subjugation. In Cell, Incarceration (2002), the impact begins with disembodied feet, a witness peering through iron bars, visible only as one hand and left eye. Adams's two triptychs South Africa 1958–59 (Deposition) and South Africa 1959 remain critically acclaimed (Thorpe, online, nd). Adams also produced self-portraits, vibrant florals, and peaceful forest scenes, moving between surrealism, Cubism, and figurative expressionism.
Albert Adams remained in England, where he produced his finest works. He also lectured in art history at City University. He exhibited in the UK and internationally, across the USA, Europe, and South America, and widely in South Africa. His earliest European exhibitions include the International Centre of Graphic Arts, Yugoslavia (1960), and Galerie Schöninger, Munich, Federal republic of Germany (1961). UK-based exhibitions include the Africa Centre, London (1980) and Grosvenor Gallery, London (1995).
Albert Adams died in London, England, in 2006. Posthumously, his works on Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Darfur featured in Northumbria University Art Gallery, Nortumberland (2008), Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Salford (2012), and Art Space Gallery, London (2018). In 2025 his work featured in Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict at the Imperial War Museum, London, the first major UK museum show to explore sexual violence in war. Adams' work is represented in the UK public domain in the collections of the Imperial War Museum and the University of Salford. Internationally, it is held in the permanent collections of Iziko South African National Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, and South African Broadcasting Corporation in South Africa.
Joy Onyejiako
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Albert Adams]
Publications related to [Albert Adams] in the Ben Uri Library