Personal papers and artworks of Robert Adams
1925–87
A series of sketchbooks, collages, maquettes and a self-portrait have been selected from the Robert Adams collection and are available online. Together the material documents the wide range of Adams's practice over nearly forty years. The sketchbooks date from c.1944-80 and contain studies for a variety of artworks by Adams, such as the screen forms and 'Vertex' series of sculptures. The maquettes date from the 1950s to the 1970s and relate to the 'Vertex' and 'Cavetto' sculptures of the 1970s. The self-portrait dates from c.1946.
Details of the remainder of the collection can be found on the Archive catalogue.
- Collection Owner
- Robert Adams 1917–1984
- Collection
- Tate Archive
- Acquisition
- Presented by Mrs Pat Adams, widow of the artist, and her daughter Mrs Mary Adams Weatherhead, in 1984 and 1990.
- Reference
- TGA 8421
44 objects in this collection
- Title
- Pages from ‘Paris’ sketchbook
- Date
- [c.1949–51]
- Description
- Seven sheets from a group of forty-six (in a private collection). They are closely related to TGA 8421/1/7, and are possibly from the same sketchbook. The group of forty-six contain sketches for figures of brass wire and for prints of abstracted figures of 1949, for the boy with an owl, in cement, at Kings Heath Lower School, Northampton, for carved figures such as 'Figure' (Tate T03866), for 'Apocalyptic Figure' commissioned by the Arts Council for the Festival of Britain, for cut metal reliefs and abstract wire constructions of c.1951. One sheet of a series of studies for an abstract sculpture of curved planes, mounted on a tripod, possibly a fountain, is signed and dated (perhaps later?), 1952.
- Reference
- TGA 8421/1/8
