Marion Adnams

Marion Adnams (b. 1898, UK; d. 1995, UK) was born in Derby and lived and worked there for most of her life. She remains a little-known figure, never joining any of the British Surrealist groups, rarely featuring in the press, and exhibiting mainly in the Midlands. She trained as a modern languages teacher but in the 1930s took evening classes at Derby School of Art where she was taught by Alfred Bladen, a Derby artist who shared her interest in Surrealism. In 1938, Adnams became an art teacher at Homelands Grammar School for Girls in Derby, and in 1946, she was appointed senior lecturer and head of the art department at Derby Training College. From the end of the 1930s, she started painting in a Surrealist style, putting apparently unrelated objects together in mysterious scenes, and rarely if ever including figures. For about 30 years, Adnams showed continuously in London and the provinces and had a retrospective exhibition at Midland Group Gallery in 1971. Public collections in Manchester, Salford, Nottingham, Leicester, Derby and Wolverhampton hold examples of her works. Adnams stopped painting around 1968 due to deteriorating eyesight.