Kenneth Adams was born in Kansas, and first started his art career in Topeka during 1913. He studied with artist G.M. Stone, who became the basis for his formal education that began three years later at the Art Institute of Chicago. Adams served in WWI, and when he was discharged, he moved to New York City to study at the Art Students League. Soon after completing courses there, Adams moved abroad to study Italian and French art. In 1924, Adams was back in Kansas, where his friend Andrew Dasburg encouraged him to move to New Mexico.
Adams settled in Taos, and remained there for the next twelve years. He was the youngest and last member of the Taos Society of Artists. Adams became a professor at the University of New Mexico in Taos in 1929. In 1938, he moved to Albuquerque because he was awarded a Carnegie Corporation Grant to become the first artist-in-residence at the University of New Mexico. For the next 25 years, Adams taught at the university, and in 1963 he became a full professor.
Exhibited: San Francisco Art Association, 1920, 1932; National Academy of Design, 1928-46; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art; Corcoran Gallery, 1930-39; Philadelphia, (prize 1932); Corcoran Gallery of Art, (prize 1935); San Francisco Museum of Art, 1932, 1946; Art Institute of Chicago; Carnegie Institute; Dallas Museum of Fine Art; Virginia Museum of Fine Art; Kansas City Art Institute, (prize 1938); Denver Art Museum (prizes 1928, 1930, 1940); New Mexico State Fair (prizes 1944-45); Museum New Mexico, Santa Fe (prize 1950); Harwood Foundation; Gilcrease Foundation; Cedar City & Logan, Utah; Salons of America; New Mexico State Museum; University of New Mexico Fine Art Center, 1964.
Works held: Whitney Museum of American Art; Carnegie Institute; Library of Congress; New York Public Library; Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE; University of New Mexico; Colorado Springs Fine Art Center; Kansas City College; Denver Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Honolulu Academy Of Art; Dallas Museum of Fine Art; United States Post Office at Goodland;
Further Reading: Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Vol. 1. Peter Hastings Falk, Georgia Kuchen and Veronica Roessler, eds.,Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1999. 3 Vols., Samuels' Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, Peggy and Harold Samuels, 1985, Castle Publishing.
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