“My work is based on my experience of South Africa as a 'vast and terrifying prison' - an experience which even now, after a decade of democracy, still haunts me."

Albert Adams was born in Johannesburg on 23 June 1929. His father had emigrated from India to South Africa in 1911. His mother, Emma Caroline, was a coloured South African who made a living as a domestic worker. At the age of four, after his parents separated, Adams moved to Cape Town with his mother and sister.

While living in Cape Town, Adams attended Arsenal Road Primary School, and later the Livingstone High School in Claremont. It was here that his teachers noticed his talent for drawing, and where he was encouraged by the head master, Mr. Roberts, to take art as a subject under a Mr. Esterhuysen.

Figure 1 below: "South Africa 1959" triptych

Adams’ time at Livingstone was a defining period in his life, as he came under the influence of some of the teaching staff. These staff members were leading coloured intellectuals at the time, and prominent members of the Non European Unity Movement. Adams excelled at school, edited the school magazine and became Head Boy. At Livingstone, he also befriended fellow student Peter Clarke, who was from a poor working class background and would later become one of the leading artists and poets in the country. Adams and Clarke were to become life long friends.

After completing his matric (Grade 12), the highly political young Adams applied to study at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Arts, but due to the university’s racial discriminatory policy he was turned down. In order to gather funds to continue his studies, he found work as a window dresser. In the late 1940’s, he began attending art classes at St Peters school in District Six, which was founded by David Copeland. Albert invited his friend Peter Clarke to join the classes, and the pair became an integral part of the vibrant political and cultural scene in Cape Town.

Adams then enrolled for a teaching degree at Hewat Teacher Training College where he became head of the National Union of South African Students. Soon, Adams became actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement. After being arrested twice, Adams realised that the South African political situation was rapidly deteriorating, and applied to universities in England. These universities included Durham, Oxford and London. He was accepted to all of these institutions, but was advised by Oxford to attend the Slade School of Art in London.

Adams moved to London with the help from his two German friends and supporters, Baron Rudolf von Freiling and Siegfried Eick. He studied in London from 1953 to 1957, when he was awarded a scholarship to the Munich School of Art. He remained in Europe for the next two years, first in Munich and then in Salzburg where he studied under expressionist artist Oskar Kokoschka. Adams and Kokoschka became close friends.

Adams returned to Cape Town in the late 1950’s and held his first solo exhibition at the Argus gallery in 1959. One of the most groundbreaking works he produced around this time was the ‘South Africa 1959’ triptych. The work anticipates an apocalypse of apartheid that would traumatise the country for another 35 years (figure one), and is now part of the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, Adams and many other South Africans left the country to settle in London. In the UK, he taught at a number of high schools, and in 1979 began teaching Art History at City College in London. He held this post for the next 18 years.

When liberation movements were unbanned in 1990, Adams made regular trips to South Africa to visit his family, and participated in artists’ workshops. Towards the end of 2006 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away on 31st December 2006. He donated his works to the Iziko South African National Gallery, and a retrospective of his work was opened at the gallery on 19th July 2008.

References

• Adams, A (2005). In his own words: quoted in the University of Antwerp Exhibition leaflet 2005 [Online]: Available at: sites.google.com. [Accessed 25 February 2009]
• Bruce-Dick, T. (2007). Albert Adams Obituary “Albert Adams: Painter inspired by South Africa”. Available at: theindependent.co.uk [Accessed 25 February 2009]
• Martin, M. and Dolby, J. (eds) (2008) Retrospective Catalogue. Albert Adams: Journey on a Tightrope. Published by Iziko South African National Gallery.

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