Charles Partridge
Adams, a Colorado landscape painter, produced a small, nonetheless imperatively
substantial 20th century body of work of the Teton Range on the
Wyoming side of the state's border with Idaho. William H. Goetzmann writes in
chapter eighteen of his Grand Teton Historic Resource Study:
"The number of
artists, professional and amateur, who have painted in Jackson Hole is
incalculable...Charles Partridge Adams, a prominent Denver artist painted the Tetons on
occasion."
Young Charles Adams
moved from Massachusetts to Denver in 1876 at the age of 18. A year later he
began working at the Chain and Hardy bookstore, where he received encouragement
for his artistic interests from Helen Henderson Chain, who bad been a pupil of
the noted artist, George Inness.
A three-month camping
trip in the Rockies with another young artist in 1881 resulted in numerous
sketches and paintings. In 1885 he traveled to the East Coast, and visited the
studios of George Inness and Worthington Whittredge, and the following year he
visited the California studios of William Keith and Thomas Hill. Though not isolated from other artists,
Adams was largely self-taught, experimenting with different styles and
techniques and continuing to use those that best served his vision and his
subject matter.
His paintings were
first exhibited publicly in Denver in 1886, and he exhibited work in both local
and national shows through 1904. In 1893 Adams established his first Denver
studio, and began to paint watercolor, in addition to oils. Since watercolors
were less expensive, they sold readily, and from that time on Adams painted many
watercolors.
In 1900, Charles Adams
began renting a studio in Estes Park during the summer months, and in 1905 he
built a studio there called "The Sketchbox" on Fish Creek Road, a
building which still stands. Many paintings were purchased there by visitors to
nearby Rocky Mountain National Park and taken home to all parts of the country,
and even abroad. He was so successful that by the end of the summer he was able
to pay off the cost of the building "The Sketchbox" and the land upon
which it stood.
Besides traveling
extensively in the Colorado Rockies, he traveled to New Mexico, Arizona, and
Wyoming, painting the Tetons and Yellowstone on several trips to the area
between 1900 and 1913 and again in 1932. Adams also painted Glacier National
Park. An earlier trip to Louisiana in 1890 and a trip to Europe in 1914
resulted in additional paintings.
In 1917 Adams became
quite ill and spent the winter in Los Angeles. He purchased a home there in
1920, and bought a second home in Laguna Beach in 1926. Since paintings of the
Colorado mountains were not in demand in California, he primarily painted
coastal scenes and a few of the California mountains, continuing to paint some
Colorado scenes from memory for sale in Colorado.
In California, Adams
never achieved the success he had enjoyed in Colorado, though he continued to
paint until his death in 1942.
Source: Dines,
Dorothy,et. aI., "The Art of Charles Partridge Adams
Fulcrum Publishing,
Golden, Colorado, 1993
Collections:
Denver Art Musewn
Kansas City Art Association,
Missouri
San Diego Musewn
University of
Colorado, Boulder
University ofNorthem
Colorado, Greeley
Women's Club, Denver
Exhibitions:
Artists' Club, 1894
Chicago Art Institute,
1892, 1897, 1899, 1901
Denver Chain and Hardy
Bookstore, 1886 (solo)
Exposition, St. Louis,
1904
Exposition, St. Louis,
1904
National Mining and
Industrial Exhibition, 1884 Denver (gold)
National Academy of
Design, 1890. 1896-1897
Pan-American
Exposition, Buffalo, 1901 (honorable mention)
Trans-Mississippi
Exposition, Omaha, Nebraska, 1898
Book Reference:
The Art of Charles
Partridge Adams. Dorothy Dines, et aI.,
Fulcrum Publishing
Golden,
Colorado 146 pages, 1993.
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