Biography

Adams studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then at the Art Students League in New York with Kenneth Hayes Miller and George Bridgman. He attended classes in Woodstock, New York where Andrew Dasburg encouraged him to move to Taos, New Mexico in 1924. He joined the Taos Society of Artists and painted Hispanic and Native American subjects as well as regional landscapes. In 1938 he became an artist-in-residence at the University of New Mexico. He joined the faculty at the University, retiring in 1963.

Critical Analysis

Adams was a late-comer to the Taos Society of Artists, which had been founded in 1915 by the "Taos Six": Joseph Henry Sharp, E. Irving Couse, Oscar E. Berninghaus, W. Herbert Dunton, Ernest Blumenschein and Bert Phillips. Adams' portraits shared the preference of Society artists for vibrant colors and local themes. His mural "The Three Peoples", commissioned for the library at the University of New Mexico, has been criticized and even vandalized for its alledgedly racist portrayals. Given the artist's choice of subjects, this is probably an unfair characterization, although Adams was undoubtedly influenced by attitudes prevalent in his era, which are justly criticized today.

Murals

• Goodland, Kansas - Post Office: Rural Free Delivery
• Albuquerque, New Mexico - Zimmerman Library: The Three Peoples
• Deming, New Mexico - Post Office: Mountains and Yucca

References

1. Juan Duran (Smithsonian American Art Museum).
2. Kenneth M. Adams (Smithsonian American Art Museum).
3. Lloyd Lozes Goff, Kenneth M. Adams, New Mexico Quarterly Volume 19, Issue 3 (1949).
4. Kenneth Miller Adams (Wikipedia).
5. Parallel Lives: Andrew Dasburg, Kenneth Adams, Ward Lockwood and the Modern Tradition, Selections from the University's Collection (Traditional Fine Arts Organization).
6. Taos Society of Artists (Wikipedia).