39 Facts About Edward Adamson

Edward Adamson was a British artist, "the father of Art Therapy in Britain", and the creator of the Adamson Collection.

Edward Adamson was born in 1911 at Sale, near Manchester, in Cheshire.

Edward Adamson received a degree in Fine Art from Bromley School of Art in London.

Edward Adamson became interested in helping long-term hospital patients pass the time.

At the time Edward Adamson met him, Hill was working with the Red Cross Picture Library to loan and lecture on reproductions of paintings to patients in British hospitals to enhance their recovery.

From 1948, Edward Adamson saw, for two hours each morning, a group of women, on a ward of the main hospital, most of whom had the diagnosis of schizophrenia, and who had all lived in Netherne for many years.

Dax published his full account of the results in 1953 in "Experimental Studies in Psychiatric Art": Edward Adamson only warranting a single mention by name:.

Edward Adamson continued working at Netherne until his retirement in 1981, enabling and encouraging hundreds of people to express themselves through art.

Edward Adamson was more widely involved across the hospital, from having the courage of having endless corridor walls painted primrose yellow to designing costumes for the annual pantomime, a key feature of asylum life in Britain at the time.

Polonsky had been an artist before she was compelled to live in Netherne, probably 1948 to 1982, but when Edward Adamson first met her, she was scrubbing the hospital floors.

For Polonsky to practise her sculpture, Edward Adamson had to persuade the hospital authorities to lift the restrictions on 'potential offensive weapons in the hands of mental patients' so she could have a hammer and chisel.

Edward Adamson's art is deeply religious and personal, and she uses Christian themes in a refreshing and idiosyncratic way'.

Edward Adamson met his long-term partner and collaborator, the teacher and writer John Timlin, in 1953 at Timlin's production of Kenneth Woollard's play "Morning Departure".

Edward Adamson visited the school, and met the children and looked at their paintings.

Edward Adamson was the first artist employed in the National Health Service.

Edward Adamson was obliged to make up the financial difference himself, and so he kept art therapy alive until it was later officially recognised by the NHS, and prevented it from being subsumed under Occupational Therapy.

Edward Adamson was involved from the late 1940s in the discussions and working groups that eventually led to the British Association of Art Therapists in 1964, of which he was a founder member and, briefly, its first chair.

Timlin had a cottage in Stanton, where he and Edward Adamson would be most weekends.

Edward Adamson was a close friend of Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, and involved as she created the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore.

Hoffberger came to London to meet Edward Adamson after reading 'Art as Healing'.

Hoffberger describes Edward Adamson as 'renowned for his gentle nature as the British Buddha' in the celebratory catalogue.

In November 1995 Edward Adamson was advised privately that he was to be awarded the MBE for his services to mental health but he died before this was formally bestowed upon him.

Edward Adamson died at his London home, the Studios, Hollywood Road in West Brompton, on 3 February 1996, aged 84.

Edward Adamson's ashes were interred at the Ashton Chapel on the Ashton Wold estate.

Edward Adamson's obituary was published in the New York Times on 10 February 1996 at 'Edward Adamson, 84, Therapist Who Used Art to Aid Mentally Ill'.

Edward Adamson's obituary was published in Raw Vision at Adamson Collection archives.

The Edward Adamson Collection is a body of work of international and historical importance, which has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and received wide media coverage.

Edward Adamson showed the Collection as early as 1947 in group shows of - to use a term from the time - 'psychiatric art'.

When Edward Adamson retired from Netherne in 1981, he estimated there were 100,000 objects - paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramics - in the Collection.

The Edward Adamson Centre closed in November 2016, due to service changes.

The 50 ink drawings by Edward Adamson passed to ACT to be returned to Art Therapies, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust in 2024.

AVAM have about 50 objects that Edward Adamson donated in 1995.

The act of creating was what mattered to Edward Adamson, who felt the artist or therapist should avoid influencing, distorting, or impinging upon self-expression.

Edward Adamson encouraged 'free expression' by letting people come to paint or sculpt without comment or judgement, and with only minimal technical assistance.

Edward Adamson abhorred psychological interpretation, which he dismissed as 'the therapist's own projections' onto the work, and maintained that only the creator could explain their own work.

Edward Adamson saw himself an artist, "somewhere in between" the clinical staff and the patients, and the space where he worked as an art studio.

Edward Adamson thought only artists should work with art as therapy.

Edward Adamson exhibited work from the Collection from 1947 on, and internationally until his death in 1996.

Edward Adamson believed the exhibiting of the Collection educated the public about the creativity and humanity of those diagnosed with mental disorders.