Peter Seitz Adams is one of California’s most recognized landscape and figurative painters and an important figure in contemporary Southern California art. He is the longest serving President of the
California Art ClubThe California Art Club , founded in 1909, is one of the oldest and most active arts organizations in California. It celebrated its centennial in the spring of 2010. The California Art Club originally evolved from the Painters Club of Los Angeles...
(f. 1909) and a member of the Board of Directors of the
Pacific Asia MuseumThe Pacific Asia Museum is an Asian art museum located at 46 N. Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, California, United States.The museum was founded in 1971 by the Pacificulture Foundation, which purchased “The Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art” from the City of Pasadena...
in
PasadenaPasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
. Adams has been a professional artist since the late 1970s and, as a world traveler, he has been described as working in the tradition of 19th Century British Adventurer-Artists. He has painted extensively abroad, hiking and painting his way across Asia on two expeditions in the 1980s, where he visited China, India, Pakistan, Tibet and Bhutan. Disguised as a
MujahideenMujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
, in 1987 he painted in
AfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
during Russia’s long involvement there and then lectured on his experiences when he went back to the United States. Adams is also a talented writer and editor who has written extensively for the California Art Club newsletter as well as a number of the organizations exhibition catalogs. His high-keyed works, which includes Plein-Air landscapes, still lifes and imaginative figurative paintings have been exhibited in a long series of solo and group exhibitions in private galleries and museums in California and the Western United States.
Family and Personal Background
Peter Adams rodric comes from a socially prominent family. His mother, Mary Seitz Adams (1917–2004), was a socially active homemaker and his father, Peter Adams Sr., was a businessman by vocation, but an actor by
avocationAn avocation is an activity that one engages in as a hobby outside one's main occupation. There are many examples of people whose professions were the ways that they made their livings, but for whom their activities outside of their workplaces were their true passions in life...
. Peter Adams Senior appeared in Hollywood epics such as "The Robe" and the "Big Fisherman," Jailhouse Rock and the television series
ZorroZorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media....
; thus, Hollywood figures like
Claudette ColbertClaudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...
were family friends. His maternal grandfather was the playwright and Hollywood director
George B. SeitzGeorge Brackett Seitz was an American playwright, screenwriter, film actor and director. He was known for his screenplays for action serials, including:*The Perils of Pauline *The Exploits of Elaine...
(1888–1944). Adams has two older sisters, Mary Adams O’Connell, who is a prominent businesswoman and Aileen Adams Cowan, who is a former Secretary of State for Consumer Affairs for the State of California and an Assistant Attorney General in the Clinton Administration. Adams grew up in Beverly Hills and attended Harvard School. Peter Adams is married to Elaine Shelby Adams, a former stockbroker who has managed the California Art Club as well as Adams' career since 1993. They have no children. Peter and Elaine Adams live on a leafy street in Pasadena in a large comfortable home that has been described as an eclectic mixture of Chinese furniture and Antiques, some significant works by his teacher Theodore Lukits as well as a broad selection of some of his own works chosen by his wife. The Adams have constructed elaborate waterfalls and pools, as well as walls and walkways made of river stones around their Pasadena property. Peter Adams' atelier features a high pitched roof that allows him to work on large paintings and glassed shelves filled with his vast collection of art books. He is an avid outdoors-man who hikes or mountain bikes in the San Gabriel Mountains with his border collies and enjoys backpacking and painting trips in the Sierras. Adams is known for his eccentric behavior and he enjoys costume parties so much that he keeps closets full of costumes in his home and once dressed as the Ming Emperor for a CAC opening in Chinatown. He is considered a gifted public speaker and raconteur who is said to have a story for every occasion.
Early Art Studies
From the earliest stages of his artistic life, Adams was drawn to traditional, representational art. As a young man he collected adventure books from the “Golden Age” of American Illustration”. He credits these romantic tales, illustrated by artists like
Howard PyleHoward Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...
, N.C. Wyeth and
Dean CornwellDean Cornwell was an American illustrator and muralist. His oil paintings were frequently featured in popular magazines and books as literary illustrations, advertisements, and posters promoting the war effort. Throughout the first half of the 20th century he was a dominant presence in American...
with not only inspiring his art, but interesting him in the world beyond the shores of America. Adams wanted to learn how to paint like the turn-of-the-century painters did, but his initial studies at the Instituto de Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico (1969), Otis Art Institute and Art Center School (1970) were less than fulfilling. In the late 1960s, encouragement and instruction for the traditional painter was difficult to find. Then, in 1970 he was introduced to
Theodore LukitsTheodore Nikolai Lukits was a California portrait and landscape painter. His initial fame came from his portraits of some of the most glamorous actresses of the Silent Film era, but since his death, his Asian-inspired works, figures drawn from Hispanic California and his pastel landscapes have all...
(1897–1992) a well-known portrait, still life and landscape painter who had been teaching in Los Angeles since 1924.
Studies With Theodore Lukits
Peter Adams entered the atelier of Theodore Lukits in 1970. Adams has described walking into Lukits studio, which was lined with plaster casts of Roman and Greek sculpture, student’s drawings and Chinese antiques "like walking into another century” because the Lukits Atelier resembled those of the 19th century Parisian painters' he admired. Lukits had been a child prodigy and he began his own studies before he was twelve at the Washington University School of Fine Arts, then the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and finally at the
Art Institute of ChicagoThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, where he captured all the major awards. Lukits method of instruction was based on the Parisian ateliers of the late 19th century when hundreds of Americans studied in Paris. Lukits had studied with a host of Parisian- and European-trained painters including Alphonse Mucha(1860–1939), Edmund Henry Wuerpel (1866–1947), Edwin Blashfield (1848–1936), Karl Albert Buehr (1866–1952), Wellington J. Reynolds (1865–1949), Richard E. Miller (1875–1943), Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872–1930) and Robert Henri (1865–1929). This type of instruction is now known as the "Atelier Method." The Beaux-Arts method had evolved over hundreds of years from the Renaissance through the 19th century and was brought to perhaps its highest level of refinement by Parisian masters like William-Adolphe Bouguereau(1825–1905), Jean-Leon Gerome (1824–1904) and Leon Bonnat (1833–1922). Adams was to study with Lukits for seven years and eventually he became his apprentice, but like all of Lukits new students, he began by "drawing from the antique" which meant doing charcoal or graphite portraits of marbles and plaster casts of ancient Roman and Greek statuary. These studies taught Adams and the other students to understand "values" which are the tonal gradations of light and shadow, applicable to working under artificial lighting conditions in the studio or out of doors under the natural light of the sun or moon. Advancement in a traditional atelier is based on mastery rather than an artificial quarter or semester system, so Adams moved from working from plaster casts to simple still life set-ups only after his instructor was satisfied with his work. As a culmination of his graphite work Adams did a series of fanciful still life drawings of Asian antiques that set the direction for the still life works of his professional career. Eventually he began to work in color, painting still life set-ups under the colored lights that Lukits used to simulate conditions an artist would find out of doors. As the months passed under Lukits' guidance, he attended Lukits' anatomy and life drawing classes. Like the Parisian-trained painters of the last century, during the summers, Adams also began to paint “En plein-air” as the practice of painting out of doors, directly from the landscape is known. He began going out painting with
Arny KarlArny Karl was one of the key artists in the early stages of the California Plein-Air Revival, which started in the 1980s and continues to this day...
(1940–2000) an older Lukits student who had been painting out of doors for a number of years. Using the pastel medium, the two went on Plein-Air trips to the local foothills, the Southland beaches, including trips to St. Malo, near Oceanside, where the Adams family had a beach house and into the San Gabriel Mountains. Karl and Adams also made much longer trips to the American and
Canadian National ParksThe National Parks of Canada encompass over forty protected areas, including National Parks, National Park Reserves, National Marine Conservation Areas, and one National Landmark...
, going as far north as the
Canadian RockiesThe Canadian Rockies comprise the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains range. They are the eastern part of the Canadian Cordillera, extending from the Interior Plains of Alberta to the Rocky Mountain Trench of British Columbia. The southern end borders Idaho and Montana of the USA...
. By the mid-1970s, they were painting with an even younger Lukits student,
Tim SollidayTim Solliday is a contemporary California Plein-Air Painter and Western Artist who is known for his San Gabriel Valley landscapes and his paintings of American Indians and other western subjects. He studied with the California Impressionist portrait and landscape painter Theodore Lukits in the...
(b. 1952). Together, the three artists began to revive the practice of painting en Plein-Air with pastels, as their teacher Lukits had done in the 1920s and 1930s.
Professional career
Adams began painting professionally about 1980. He was first represented by The Greg Juarez Gallery in Beverly Hills. Run by the collector, philanthropist and 9th generation Californian Greg Juarez (b. 1925), the Juarez Gallery represented Adams for a number of years. Next, he moved to the Adamson-Duvannes Gallery in West Hollywood, California. Jerome Adamson was an art collector who had purchased the historic Armand-Duvannes Gallery. He represented Adams for a number of years and mounted Adams’ large exhibitions of works from Asia and Afghanistan. In 1992, he began to exhibit his work with the Morseburg Galleries in West Hollywood, where he worked with Jeffrey Morseburg, his friend and a fellow student of Theodore Lukits. At Morseburg Galleries, Adams participated in a long series of group exhibitions which included the older painter Richard Rackus (b. 1922), as well as two of his friends from the Lukits Atelier, Arny Karl (1940–2000) and Tim Solliday (b. 1952). These exhibitions emphasized the revival of Plein-Air landscape painting and helped to add steam to a growing movement. Morseburg also had an enthusiasm for the pastel medium and Adams participated in a number of pastel shows along with Solliday, Karl, Gil Dellinger , Rich Hilker and Clark Mitchell. Adams also began showing his work with Waterhouse Gallery in Santa Barbara. In 2005, his wife, Elaine Adams opened American Legacy Fine Arts, a small, well-appointed gallery below Adams’ studio in Pasadena and she took over promoting her husband’s work in Los Angeles.
Artistic Influences
Adams is quick to credit a wide variety of historic painters as influencing his works. While he has been inspired by the classical tradition, it is a tradition that he sees as broad and deep and seldom limiting. First and foremost he cites Theodore Lukits, his teacher and mentor whose received knowledge are a direct link back to the studios of Paris and the French Masters that he admires, including William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) and
Jean-Leon GeromeJean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.-Life:Jean-Léon Gérôme was born...
(1824–1904). Like most Plein-Air painters he also cites the Spanish Impressionist Joaquin Sorolla (1863–1923) and the Swedish painter of figures in outdoor settings Anders Zorn (1860–1920) as having an impact on his work. However, in contrast to many painters steeped in the Plein-Air tradition, the course of Adams' life and career has been influenced by the Orientalists, the French, British and American painters who ventured to the Middle East in the 19th century, painting the "exotic" people who populated lands that were unfamiliar to them. He includes
John Frederick LewisJohn Frederick Lewis was an Orientalist English painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes and often worked in exquisitely detailed watercolour. He was the son of Frederick Christian Lewis , engraver and landscape-painter.Lewis lived in Spain between 1832 and 1834...
(1804–1876) Sir David Roberts (Artist) (1796–1864),
Frederick Arthur BridgmanFrederick Arthur Bridgman was an American artist known for his paintings of "Orientalist" subjects.Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, he was the son of a physician...
(1847-19280 and
Edwin Lord WeeksEdwin Lord Weeks , American artist, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1849. He was a pupil of Léon Bonnat and of Jean-Léon Gérôme, at Paris...
(1849–1903) as painters who made him curious to explore remote lands and get to known distant peoples. Adams designs and constructs his paintings differently from most painters and he has been influenced in completely different ways by the English painter, illustrator, print-maker and muralist Sir
Frank BrangwynSir Frank William Brangwyn RA RWS RBA was an Anglo-Welsh artist, painter, water colourist, virtuoso engraver and illustrator, and progressive designer.- Biography :...
(1857–1956) and the Art Nouveau painter and muralist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939). From Mucha he learned about swirling, moving, compositions and curvilinear line. From Brangwyn he learned about the juxtaposition of interesting shapes.
Assessment and Oeuvre
While Adams considers himself a traditionalist and a representational painter, he is considered to be an innovative colorist and because of his interest in unusual effects of light, natural wonders and underground geological formations, his work can be out of the mainstream of traditional art. Early in his career, his work consisted of Plein-Air pastels and oils of the Eucalyptus trees, bridges and foothills around Pasadena, but he also did a series of beach scenes with figures centered on St. Malo Beach near Oceanside. The works that he did on his extended trips to Asia were primarily figurative and he worked in quick drying tempera to sketch and then completed a series of large works for his exhibitions back in America. Most of his early paintings were in the green and tan tones of the late California Spring and Summer. As his career advanced, his palette deepened and both his Plein-Air pastels and the larger oils that he worked on in the studio became bolder and more confident. The art historian, former Chief Curator of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, described Adams' pastel work in an essay for the exhibition Contemporary Romanticism: Landscapes in Pastel as being "Inspired by the brilliant colors, atmospheric perspective, and scenic grandeur of the great 19th century Romanticists, Peter Adams, a student of Theodore Lukits in the 1970s, conveys the magical shimmer of light in ephemeral sunsets and the tranquility of the sea." Like his teacher Lukits did in the 1920s, Adams painted in the Sierras both in the summer and during the winter months when the conditions and the resulting works were more dramatic. By the mid-1990s, while its origins remained out of doors, his work was becoming more stylized, showing the unmistakable influence of Art Nouveau. As he reached middle age, Adams began to do large works of unusual natural formations, geysers and pools in
Yellowstone National ParkYellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...
or stalactites in Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. In recent years he had returned to the human figure as a subject, often combining fantasy and reality in his works, as he has done in a series of recent works centered on the story of Wagner's
Ring of the Nibelung and the Los Angeles Ring Festival mounted by the Los Angeles Opera.
Revival of the California Art Club
By the early 1990s, Adams and his friends who were also traditional painters saw the need for an organization that could help to bring order to the reemerging traditional art movement in California. He and his wife Elaine, along with their friend and dealer Jeffrey Morseburg, had been discussing the need for some sort of umbrella organization that could mount exhibitions and promote Plein-Air and figurative painting for a number of years. In 1993, when Verna Guenther, who was a member of the historic California Art Club, came to Morseburg to see if he knew anyone younger who was capable of taking over the venerable organization that then consisted of an aging cohort of painters, Morseburg, seeing an opportunity, recommended Peter and Elaine Adams because he saw the value in taking over an existing organization to promote traditional fine arts. After some thoughts about the effects that such a task could have on his career, Peter Adams accepted the Presidency of the California Art and he has remained at its helm to the present. In order to reorganize the California Art Club, Adams began to recruit most of the active professional landscape and figurative painters that he knew. The core group of artists that became members of the reorganized California Art Club were primarily students of Theodore Lukits or the Russian landscape and figurative painter Sergei Bongart (1918–1985). In his first meeting, in the Adams' Pasadena home, he signed up Tim Solliday, Steve Houston, Bill Stout and Steve Mirich. Among the first wave of painters to join the reorganized CAC were Bongart students Dan Pinkham, Sunny Apinchapong Yang, the elderly artist Richard Rackus and the Russian painters Alexander Orlov and Alexey Steele.
Organization of California Art Club Special Exhibitions
Under the leadership of Peter and Elaine Adams, the California Art Club began to organize a series of thematic exhibitions at both art and natural history museums. The Adams saw that there was a natural relationship between landscape art and ecological awareness and natural history. In 1996, the California Art Club organized the
California Wetlands Exhibition at the Natural History Museum in historic Exposition Park in Los Angeles. This exhibition included works by artists such as Bill Stout, Marcia Burtt, Meredith Brooks Abbott, Debra Hulse, Arny Karl and Peter Adams. In May through August 1998, the California Art Club mounted
Treasures of the Sierra Nevada at the
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles CountyThe Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, USA in 1913 as the Museum of History, Science, and Art. The moving force behind it was a museum association founded in 1910. Its distinctive main building, with fitted marble walls and domed and...
, featuring works by historic California artists like
Edgar Alwin PayneEdgar Alwin Payne was an American Western landscape painter and muralist.-Early life:Payne was born in Washburn, Barry County, Missouri, in the heart of the Ozarks. Washburn is in southwest Missouri, only nine miles from the Arkansas border. But that wouldn’t stop this turn-of-the-century Missouri...
(1883–1947), Jack Wilkinson Smith, and Theodore Lukits as well as contemporary painters like Adams, John Budicin, Dan Pinkham and Karl Dempwolf. The Carnegie Museum in Oxnard, California hosted a large exhibition of works by painters from the California Art Club in 1994 titled
The California Art Club: 85 Years of Art where Adams' work was featured prominently. In 1997, Peter and Elaine Adams and the California Art Club organized a traveling exhibition which contrasted the work of American Impressionists and Classical Realist painters from the East and Midwestern
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with the California Impressionists. Titled
East Coast Ideals, West Coast Concepts, the exhibition traveled from the Carnegie Museum in Oxnard, to the Springville Museum of Art in Springville, Utah to the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. Among the historic artists represented were
William McGregor PaxtonWilliam McGregor Paxton was an American Impressionist painter.Born in Baltimore, the Paxton family came to Newton Corner in the mid-1870s, where William's father James established himself as a caterer. At 18, William won a scholarship to attend the Cowles Art School, where he began his art studies...
and R.H.Ives Gammell (1893–1981), representing the Boston School and Theodore Lukits and
Maurice BraunMaurice Braun was an American artist who became known for Impressionist landscapes of southern California. He was born in Hungary on October 1, 1877, however by the age of four young Maurice and the Braun family had migrated to the United States and settled in New York City...
(1877–1941) representing the California Impressionists. Contemporary artists included the works of Richard Lack, Allen Banks, Stephen Gjertson from the East and Midwest and Peter Adams, Gregory Hull and Tim Solliday representing the West. In 1999, the California Art began a long relationship with the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at
Pepperdine UniversityPepperdine University is an independent, private, medium-sized university affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The university's campus overlooking the Pacific Ocean in unincorporated Los Angeles County, California, United States, near Malibu, is the location for Seaver College, the School of...
in Malibu with the exhibition titled
On Location in Malibu, which was another show that brought awareness to the troubled California Coast. The exhibition, organized by Peter and Elaine Adams and curated by the Weisman's Michael Zakian, ran from May 22 to August 7, featuring the work of Adams along with dozens of CAC painters including David Gallup, Stephen Mirich and
Alexey SteeleAlexey Steele is an American painter of the Russian Representational School and a Soviet Art scholar. He moved to Los Angeles in 1990. Steele gained recognition for his unusual multi-figure compositions of an exceptionally large scale. His areas of expertise also include portraits, nudes and...
.
See also
- California Art Club
The California Art Club , founded in 1909, is one of the oldest and most active arts organizations in California. It celebrated its centennial in the spring of 2010. The California Art Club originally evolved from the Painters Club of Los Angeles...
- California Plein-Air Painting
The term California Plein-Air Painting describes the large movement of 20th century California artists who worked out of doors, directly from nature in California, United States. Their work became popular in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California in the first three decades after the...
- Decorative Impressionism
Decorative Impressionism is an art historical term that is credited to the art writer Christian Brinton, who first used it in 1911. Brinton titled an article on the American expatriate painter Frederick Frieseke, one of the members of the famous Giverny Colony of American Impressionists, "The...
- Tonal Impressionism
Tonal Impressionism is an art historical term that refers to works of art that are "mood" paintings with simplified compositions, done in a limited range of colors, as with Tonalist works, but using the brighter, more chromatic palette of Impressionism...
- American Impressionism
Impressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
- Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
- Atelier Method
Atelier is the French word for "workshop", and in English is used principally for the workshop of an artist in the fine or decorative arts, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students and apprentices worked together producing pieces that went out in the master's name...
- Theodore Lukits
Theodore Nikolai Lukits was a California portrait and landscape painter. His initial fame came from his portraits of some of the most glamorous actresses of the Silent Film era, but since his death, his Asian-inspired works, figures drawn from Hispanic California and his pastel landscapes have all...
- Tim Solliday
Tim Solliday is a contemporary California Plein-Air Painter and Western Artist who is known for his San Gabriel Valley landscapes and his paintings of American Indians and other western subjects. He studied with the California Impressionist portrait and landscape painter Theodore Lukits in the...
- Arny Karl
Arny Karl was one of the key artists in the early stages of the California Plein-Air Revival, which started in the 1980s and continues to this day...
- Autry National Center
The Autry National Center of the American West is an intercultural center and museum in Los Angeles, California that celebrates the diversity and history of the American West through three important institutions: the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the American West, and the...
for Western Heritage
- En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
Public Group Exhibitions
- 2010 - 99th Annual California Art Club Gold Medal Exhibition, Pasadena Museum of California Art
- 2010 - 13th Masters of the American West, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California
- 2009 - 98th Annual California Art Club Exhibition, Pasadena Museum of California Art (Gold Medal for Best of Show)
- 2009 - 12th Masters of the American West, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California
- 2008 - From Charles Burchfield to Peter Adams: Watercolors and Pastels from the Permanent Collection, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, March 21-September 14, 2008, Loretto, Pennsylvania
- 2008 - 97th Annual California Art Club Gold Medal Exhibition, Pasadena Museum of California Art
- 2008 - 11th Masters of the American West, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California
- 2007 - August–September: Bergstrom-Mahler Museum – From Sea to Shining Sea: A Reflection of America; Neenah, Wisconsin
- 2007 - 96th Annual California Art Club Gold Medal Exhibition, Pasadena Museum of California Art
- 2007 - 10th Masters of the American West, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California
- 2006 - November 2006-January 2007: Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Gallery – From Sea to Shining Sea: A Reflection of America; Wausau, Wisconsin
- 2006 - July–September: City of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Museum, Courthouse Gallery – From Sea to Shining Sea: A Reflection of America; Portsmouth, Virginia
- 2006 - March–June, 2006: National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum – Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in Americaís First National Park; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- 2006 - 95th Annual California Art Club Gold Medal Exhibition, Pasadena Museum of California Art
- 2006 - 9th Masters of the American West, Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles, California
- 2005 - November 2005 - Jan 2006: Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture – Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in Americaís First National Park; Spoke, Washington
- 2005 - September–November: Museum of the Southwest – From Sea to Shining Sea: A Reflection of America; Midland, Texas
- 2005 - May–August:Buffalo Bill Historical Center – Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in Americaís First National Park; Cody, Wyoming
- 2005 - April–June: Museum of Texas Tech University – From Sea to Shining Sea: A Reflection of America; Lubbock, Texas
- 2005 - February–March: Autry National Center – 8th Annual Masters of the American West; Los Angeles, California
- 2005 - January–March: George Bush Presidential Library – From Sea to Shining Sea: A Reflection of America, College Station, Texas
- 2004 - October 2004-January 2005: Pasadena Museum of California Art – 94th Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition (CAC group); Pasadena, CA
- 2004 - September 2004-January 2005: Autry National Center – Drawn to Yellowstone: Artists in Americaís First National Park; Los Angeles, California
- 2004 - September–December: 2004 California Art Club Gallery at The Old Mill – In the Midst of Moonlight; San Marino, California
- 2004 - October–November: Hillsdale College – America Seen; Hillsdale, Michigan
- 2004 - May–July: Haggin Museum
The Haggin Museum, is an art and local history museum in Stockton, California in Victory Park. It was created around 1928. The museum includes paintings by Jean Béraud, Rosa Bonheur, William Bouguereau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, George Inness and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It has the largest collection of...
– From Sea to Shining Sea: A Reflection of America; Stockton, CA
- 2004 - February–March: Autry Museum of Western Heritage – 7th Annual Masters of the American West; Los Angeles, California
- 2003 - December 2003-March 2004: California Art Club Gallery at The Old Mill – Expressions of Winter; San Marino, CA
- 2003 - October–November: Pasadena Museum of California Art – 93rd Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition (CAC group); Pasadena, CA
- 2003 - June–July: Colorado History Museum – Salon d’Arts (invited national artists); Denver Colorado
- 2003 - May–August:Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art – On Location in Malibu 2003 (CAC group); Pepperdine University,Malibu, California
- 2003 - February–March: Autry Museum of Western Heritage – 6th Annual Masters of the American West; Los Angeles, California
- 2001 - May–June: Pasadena Historical Museum – 92nd Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition (CAC group); Pasadena, CA
- 2002 - February–March: Autry Museum of Western Heritage – 5th Annual Masters of the American West; Los Angeles, California
- 2001 - November, 2001 - March, 2002: Laguna Art Museum – Representing L.A:Pictorial Currents in Contemporary Southern California Art (curated by Gordon Fuglie, Director, Laband Art Gallery), Laguna Beach
- 2001 - October - December: - Haggin Museum
The Haggin Museum, is an art and local history museum in Stockton, California in Victory Park. It was created around 1928. The museum includes paintings by Jean Béraud, Rosa Bonheur, William Bouguereau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, George Inness and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It has the largest collection of...
– Contemporary Artists Paint Yosemite and the Eastern Sierra; a California Art Club Invitational, Stockton, CA
- 2001 - May–June: Pasadena Historical Museum – 91st Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition (CAC group); Pasadena, CA
- 2001 - March–June: Art Museum of South Texas – Representing L.A.: Pictorial Currents in Contemporary Southern California Art (curated by Gordon Fuglie, Director, Laband Art Gallery), Corpus Christie, Texas
- 2001 - February: Autry Museum of Western Heritage – 4th Annual Masters of the American West; Los Angeles, California
- 2001 - February–April: The Newington-Cropsey Foundation – American Society of Classical Realism Guild of Artists, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
- 2000 - December 2000 February, 2001: Frye Art Museum – Representing L.A.: Pictorial Currents in Contemporary Southern California Art (curated by Gordon Fuglie, Director, Laband Art Gallery), Seattle, WA
- 2000 - July - November: Phippen Museum – On Location in Malibu (CAC group); Prescott, Arizona
- 2000 - June - August: Pasadena Historical Museum – 90th Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition (CAC group); Pasadena, California
- 2000- January–February: Autry Museum of Western Heritage – 3rd Annual Masters of the American West; Los Angeles, California
- 1999 - April 4-May 30, Contemporary Romanticism: Landscapes in Pastel, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretto, Pennsylvania, (Adams' pastel works featured prominently)
- 1999 - May - August: Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art – On Location in Malibu (CAC group); Pepperdine University, Malibu, California
- 1998 - Joan Irvine Smith Fine Arts – The Aura of Nature: Painting beyond the View; Laguna Beach, California; (duo exhibition with Daniel W. Pinkham)
- 1998 - Luckman Fine Arts Gallery – 89th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition (CAC group); Los Angeles
- 1998 - Muckenthaler Cultural Center – Treasures of the Sierra Nevada (CAC group); Fullerton, California
- 1998 - Natural History Museum of L.A – Treasures of the Sierra Nevada (CAC group); Los Angeles, California
- 1998 - Forbes Magazine Galleries – Souvenir de Normandie (Sponsored in part by American Artist Magazine); New York City, New York
- 1997 - Springville Museum of Art – East Coast Ideals -West Coast Concepts; Springville, Utah
- 1997 - Academy of Art College – East Coast Ideals – West Coast Concepts; San Francisco, California
- 1997 - Carnegie Art Museum – East Coast Ideals – West Coast Concepts; Oxnard, California
- 1996 - Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County – California Wetlands by Members of the California Art Club; Los Angeles, California
- 1996 - The California Heritage Gallery – Plein Air Painters of America Paint San Francisco; San Francisco, California
- 1996 - Carnegie Museum of Art – Puertas del Santuario: Paintings of the Mission SJC by Members of the California Art Club; Oxnard, California
- 1996 - California Heritage Art Gallery – California Art Club: Circa 1909-1996; San Francisco, California
- 1995 - Mission San Juan Capistrano – California Wetlands; San Juan Capistrano, California
- 1995 - California Heritage Art Gallery – Modern Masters of Landscape Painting; San Francisco, CA
- 1995 - Autry Museum of Western Heritage – Classic American Western Art Show; Los Angeles, CA
- 1995 - Greenhouse Gallery – Oil Painters of America Exhibition; San Antonio, Texas
- 1995 - Morseburg Galleries – Pastel Painting Group Exhibition; Los Angeles, California
- 1994 - Carnegie Art Museum – California Art Club: 85 Years of Art; Oxnard, California
- 1994 - Los Angeles Arboretum – California Art Club 85th Gold Medal; Arcadia, California
- 1993 - Long Grove Gallery – Oil Painters of America Exhibition; Long Grove, Illinois
- 1993 - Morseburg Galleries – Figure Show; Los Angeles, California
- 1993 - Morseburg Galleries – Still Life Show; Los Angeles, California
- 1992 - Morseburg Galleries – Cityscapes; Los Angeles, California
- 1992 - Morseburg Galleries – Landscape Show; Los Angeles, California
- 1991 - Poulsen Galleries – Group Show; Pasadena, California
- 1991 - Carnegie Art Museum – Theodore Lukits and His Students; Oxnard, California
- 1990 - Adamson-Duvannes Galleries – Group Christmas Show; Los Angeles, California
Solo Exhibitions
- 2003: Skidmore Contemporary Art – Peter Adams: Pastels of Malibu; Malibu, California
- 2002: Hollis Gallery – Hidden Pools of the San Gabriels; South Pasadena, California
- 1999: Galerie Gabrie – France & Italy: Painting New Perspectives; Pasadena, California
- 1998: Carnegie Art Museum – The Mystical Paintings of Peter Adams; Oxnard, California
- 1997: Jonathan Club – Solo Exhibition; Los Angeles, California
- 1996: Galerie Gabrie – California: The North and The South; Pasadena, California
- 1995: The Fine Arts Building – Moods of the Pacific; Los Angeles, California
- 1995: Mission San Juan Capistrano – Moods of the Pacific; San Juan Capistrano, California
- 1995: Poulsen Galleries – The Grand Canyon and Other Natural Splendors; Pasadena, Calif.
- 1994: Poulsen Galleries – Recent Landscapes;Pasadena, California
- 1993: Pacific Asia Museum – Moods of the Pacific; Pasadena, California
- 1992: Palm Springs Desert Museum – Exhibition and Lecture-Shadows of the Himalayas
- 1991: Adamson – Duvannes Galleries – Asia and Afghanistan; Los Angeles, California
- 1989: Bruggemeyer Memorial Library – Shadows of the Himalayas; Monterey Park, Calif.
- 1988: Pacific Asia Museum – Pastel Paintings of Asia; Pasadena, California
- 1988: Adamson – Duvannes Galleries – Asia and Afghanistan; Los Angeles, California
- 1986: Gregg Juarez Galleries – Landscapes;Palm Desert, California
- 1985: Buscombe Galleries – Hawaii; Honolulu, Hawaii
- 1984: Gregg Juarez Galleries – The China Visit II; Palm Desert, California
- 1982: Private Home in La Jolla, California – Local Scenes
- 1980: Westwood Art Association, Westwood Center of the Arts; Los Angeles, California
- 1980: Gregg Juarez Galleries – The China Visit; Los Angeles, California
- 1980: Staircase Galleries; Beverly Hills, California
- 1978: Home of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan Adams; Los Angeles, California
Memberships and Affiliations
- California Art Club, President, 1993-President
- California Art Club, Signature Member
- American Renaissance for the 21st Century; Board Member
- American Society of Classical Realism; Associate Guild Member, Honorary Emeritus
- American Society of Portrait Artists; Board Member
- Oil Painters of America; Master Signature Member
- Pastel Society of America; Signature Member
- Plein Air Painters of America; Signature Member
- Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, California, Board of Trustees
- California Club, Los Angeles, California Member, Art Committee, 1995–Present
- Academy of Art College, Board of Directors, 1996–Present
- Founder, California Art Academy and Museum, 1997
Awards and honors
- 2009 - Gold Medal, California Art Club Gold Medal Exhibition, Pasadena Museum of California Art
- 2004 - Nominated for Visual Artist of the Year, International Biographical Center, Cambridge, England
- 1997 - Golden Crown Award for Visual Art, Pasadena Arts Council
- 1994 - Gold Medal, California Discovery Awards
Public collections
- ARCO Towers, Los Angeles, California
- The Beach Club, Pacific Palisades, California
- California Club, Los Angeles, California
- Carnegie Art Museum; Oxnard, California
Oxnard is the 113th largest city in the United States, 19th largest city in California and largest city in Ventura County, California, by way of population. It is located at the western edge of the fertile Oxnard Plain, and is an important agricultural center, with its distinction as the...
- Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, also called "COLA" and the Los Angeles Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles, California, United States...
; Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
- Chadwick School, Palos Verdes, California
- Curtis School, Los Angeles, California
- Forbes Magazine Collection; New York City, New York
- Haggin Museum
The Haggin Museum, is an art and local history museum in Stockton, California in Victory Park. It was created around 1928. The museum includes paintings by Jean Béraud, Rosa Bonheur, William Bouguereau, Jean-Léon Gérôme, George Inness and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It has the largest collection of...
; Stockton, CaliforniaStockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
- Joan Irvine Smith, Irvine, California
- Jonathan Club, Los Angeles, California
- Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, California
- Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, California
- Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretto, Pennsylvania
- Stephen’s College, Columbia, Missouri
- Trust Company of the West, Los Angeles, California
Further reading
- Bellah, Suzanne, Adams, Peter & Solliday, Tim, The Pastels of Theodore Lukits, Exhibition Catalog, Carnegie Museum, Oxnard, California, 1991 (Articles on Lukits and his teaching by Bellah from the Carnegie as well as Adams and fellow student Tim Solliday)
- Rice, Ruth, Melding Two Into One, Art Exhibition Combines Pastels and Watercolors, The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, April 8, 2008 (Article on Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art Exhibition, From Charles Burchfield to Peter Adams)
- Rhoads, Eric B., A Visit with Peter Adams, Plein-Air Magazine, San Francisco, California, September 2004
- Rhoads, Eric B., Imagination at Work, Plein-Air Magazine, san Francisco, California, September 2004
- Firestone, Caroline, Afghanistan Evolving, Published by Caroline Hudson Firestone, 2004 (Book with cover illustration by Adams)
- Soderberg, Paul, Peter and Elaine Adams: The Art Bridge Builders of California, Art Talk, March, 2004
- Stern, Jean, Rose, Roy, Siple, Molly, Enchanted Isle: A History of Plein Air Painting in Santa Catalina Island, Society for Advancement of Plein-Air Painting, 2003
- Schaber, Greg, A Passion for Plein Air: Peter Adams, The Artist’s Magazine, New York, New York, May, 2002
- Leigh, Catesby, Teaching Tradion, The American Enterprise Magazine, Washington, D.C., January/February, 2002
- Cuba, Stanley, Reuniting Humanity with Nature, Art of the West Magazine, March, April, 2002
- Stavig,Vicki, Peter Adams: The Studio, Art of the West Magazine, November, 1998 (Article on Adam's elaborate studio)
- Morseburg, Jeffrey: Peter Adams, Unpublished Biographical Essay, West Hollywood, California, 1998
- Medina, Danny, Carrying on a Golden Tradition, Art Talk, Scottsdale, Arizona, September, 1997 (Article on Adams and his wife)
- Price, Linda, On Location with Peter Adams, American Artist Magazine, New York, New York, July, 1997
- Haggerty, Donald J., Leading the West: One Hundred Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, Flagstaff, Arizona; Northland Publishing, 1997 (Book with essays on 100 contemporary American artists from the western United States)
- Adams, Peter, Peter Adams: Eastern Exposure, Southwest Art Magazine, Houston, Texas, May, 1996 (Feature article)
- Fitzgerald, Paula, In the Shadows of the Himalayas, Designer's West Magazine, Los Angeles, California, March, 1989 (Feature article)
- Moure, Nancy, Impressions of California: Early Currents in Art 1850-1930, (Essay on the California Art Club), The Irvine Museum, 1996
- Morseburg, Jeffrey, Theodore Lukits, Part I, California Art Club Newsletter,Pasadena, California, October, 1998
- Morseburg, Jeffrey, Theodore Lukits, Part II, California Art Club Newsletter, Pasadena, California, December, 1998
- Morseburg, Jeffrey, Theodore Lukits, Catalog Essay Manuscript for Jonathan Art Foundation, Los Angeles, California, 2010
- Morseburg, Jeffrey, The Return of the California Impressionists, Art of California, Unpublished Manuscript, 2010
- Tomor, Michael, PhD, Contemporary Romanticism: Landscapes in Pastel, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Loretto, Pennsylvania, April 4-May 30, 1999, Exhibition Catalog
- Lukits, Lucile, Lukits Academy Tuition Book, 1970s
- Stern, Jean, Treasures of the Sierra Nevada, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Exhibition Catalog, California Art Club, Pasadena, California, 1998 (Reproductions of Adams painting)
- Adams, Peter & Adams Elaine, East Coast Ideals, West Coast Concepts, Carnegie Museum, Oxnard, California Introduction by Suzanne Bellah, Exhibition Catalog, California Art Club, Pasadena, California, 1997 (Biographical essay and reproduction in exhibition catalog)
External links