biography of Lawrence ADAMS (1905-1985)

Birth place: Charlotte, NC

Addresses: Chicago, IL, 1934-35; Columbia, MO, c.1935-40s; Pineville, LA, 1947

Profession: Educator, painter, muralist

Studied: ASL; Yale; Colorado Springs FA Center, with Boardman Robinson, summer, 1933

Exhibited: AIC, 1940 (prize); WMAA, 1941 (gives first name as Laurence)

Member: Am. A. Cong.

Work: USPO, Sullivan, Mo.

Comments: After studying with Boardman Robinson in 1933, Adams moved to Chicago, where he painted working-class types from Chicago's West Monroe district. He then began teaching at the Univ. of Missouri in Columbia (c.1935-?) and befriended Thomas Hart Benton who hired him to transfer his mural drawings to the plywood walls he had set up for the mural commission at the Missouri State Capitol. Adams painted his own mural, at the Sullivan (MO) post office, in 1941.

Sources: WW47; The Work of Our Friends: The Collection of Thomas Hart Benton and Rita Piacenza Benton (exh. cat., Aaron Gals, Chicago, IL, 1998/99), 23-25 (w/repro.).