Marion Adnams

Marion Elizabeth Adnams (3 December 1898 – 24 October 1995) was an English painter, printmaker and draughtswoman. She is notable for her surrealist paintings, in which apparently unconnected objects appear together in unfamiliar, often outdoor, environments. Some of her paintings depict landscapes and landmarks close to, or within, her native town of Derby.

Biography Adnams was born on 3 December 1898 at 22 Otter Street, Derby, the only daughter of John Frederick Adnams and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Smith. Her artistic interests were encouraged from an early age by her father, himself a woodwork teacher at Derby School. After attending Parkfield Cedars School in Derby, she expressed a desire to study art but was instead urged to go on and study at University College, Nottingham, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Languages in 1919. Between 1927 and 1930, Adnams travelled to Belgium, France, and Italy, executing woodcuts of the architecture she encountered en route, and exhibiting them to some acclaim at Derby Art Gallery and elsewhere locally with the Derby Women's Art Club. She began her career not as a language teacher, but as art mistress at Derby's Central School for Girls before being recommended for a transfer to the newly opened Homelands Grammar School for Girls, by the Derbyshire Education Committee, in October 1937.

Between 1938 and 1970, Adnams painted the surrealist works for which she is principally known, exhibiting at the British Art Centre in London, alongside Duncan Grant, Augustus John, Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, and Eileen Agar. In 1944 she exhibited her work at the Modern Art Gallery in London, alongside Jack Bilbo and Max Ernst. In 1939, Adnams sold her first painting, The Living Tree (1939), to Manchester Art Gallery for inclusion in their Rutherson Collection of Modern Art for Schools.

Adnams retired in 1960 aged sixty-one, using her time to develop her art in new directions. She acquired a second home in France, producing paintings and drawings influenced by the landscape of Provence and elsewhere. on Thursday 2 November 1995, before burial at Nottingham Road Cemetery in Derby.

Exhibitions 1939: First Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures, and Watercolours by Members of the British Art Centre, at the Stafford Gallery, London 1940: People and Flowers: the Fourth Exhibition of the British Art Centre, at the Stafford Gallery, London 1940: Limelight, at the Stafford Gallery, London 1943: Northern Artists Exhibition, at Manchester Art Gallery 1944: 'The World of Imagination' An Exhibition of 'Oodles', Abstracts, Surrealism, 'Merz'-Sculpture, Constructivism and Symbolism, at the Modern Art Gallery Limited, London 1944: Exhibition of paintings by Marion Adnams, at Derby Art Gallery, Derby 1945: Exhibition of Contemporary Oil Paintings, at Castle Art Gallery, Nottingham 1945: This Extraordinary Year: annual exhibition by members of the Artists International Association, at Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. 1946: Rutherston collection on view in Leeds 1946: Something for Everybody, at Derby Art Gallery 1947: Accent on Form, at Salford Art Gallery, Manchester 1948: 'Art for Art's Sake''' Midland Regional Group Exhibition, in Nottingham 1948: Midland Artists Display, in Nottingham 1949: Exhibition of paintings by Marion Adnams, in Nottingham 1956: An exhibition of painting and sculpture, at 102 Belper Road, Derby 1957: Marion Adnams and Evelyn Gibbs joint show, at The Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham 1960: Local artists show, at Derby Art Gallery 1961: Midland Group Autumn show, in Nottingham 1962: Open Exhibition, at Salford Gallery, Manchester 1963: Pictures for Schools exhibition, at the Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham 1962: Paintings and Drawings of Marion Adnams, at The Rose and Crown, Fletchling 1964: Paintings and Drawings of Marion Adnams, at Phoenix Theatre, Leicester 1965: Midland Group Show, at Leicester Art Gallery, Leicester 1966: Leicester University Arts Festival 1966: One-man show in the Little Gallery, Midland Group, Nottingham 1967: Exhibition at Derby Playhouse 1968: Marion Adnams, John Dalton and Dorothie Field joint exhibition, at Midland Group Gallery, Nottingham 1969: Marion Adnams paintings 1939-1969, at Abbotsholme School, Rocester, Uttoxeter 1971: Marion Adnams: a Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings, at the Midland Group Gallery in Nottingham 1990: Jack Bilbo and the Modern Art Gallery 1941-1948, at England & Co Gallery, London 1995: British and European Surrealism, at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum 2009: Imagining Landscapes, at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby 2009: Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism, at Manchester Art Gallery 2010: Later Flowering of Surrealism, at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 2011: Three Stones in the City of Ladies, at Nottingham Castle Museum 2017: John Armstrong: Dream and Reality, at The Atkinson, Southport 2017: Dreamers Awake, at White Cube, Bermondsey 2018: Women in Collections, at Nottingham Castle and Art Gallery 2017-18: Marion Adnams - A Singular Woman at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby 2018: The House Of Fame, at Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham 2018-19: Exploding Collage, at Hatton Gallery, Newcastle 2019: 50/50; Fifty Works by Fifty British Women Artists 1900 – 1950 curated by Sacha Llewellyn, London and Leeds 2019: Strange Coast - Cathie Pilkington and Marion Adnams at Transition Two, London 2020: British Surrealism curated by David Boyd Haycock, Dulwich Picture Gallery 2021: WOW Women Only Works on Paper at Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle 2021: Curiouser and Curiouser at Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2023: Private and Public: Finding the Modern British Garden at The Garden Museum, London 2023: Vernissage de l’exposition Surréalisme au féminin? at Au Musee de Monmartre Jardins Renoir, Paris. 2023: Marion Adnams: Into the Enchanted Country permanent exhibition at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby. 2024: Butterfly Time: Part 1 at Richard Saltoun Gallery, NYC. 2024: Forbidden Territories: 100 years of Surrealist Landscapes at Hepworth Wakefield Gallery, Wakefield. 2024-2026: Imagine 100 Years of International Surrealism. Touring Exhibition: The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Belgium, Brussels. Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’Art Moderne, Paris. Hamburger Kunsthalle. Fundación Mapfré, Madrid. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Legacy Adnam's work can be found in numerous public art collections, including those of Manchester Art Gallery, Salford Museums, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Leicestershire County Council, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The largest public collection of her work is with the Derby Museums Trust.

In 2011, the British milliner Stephen Jones designed and created a range of hats, titled Drifting and Dreaming, inspired by the work of Marion Adnams.