ALICE ADAMS

Adam work, celebrated in landmark institutional exhibitions, like Abstract Erotic at The Courtauld Gallery in London in 2025, stands out for its ability to transform familiar materials into spaces that invite new ways of seeing and experiencing the built environment.

Early Years

Born in New York City in 1930 and raised in Jamaica, Queens, Alice Adams graduated with a BFA in painting from Columbia University in 1953. She then studied tapestry weaving and design at the École nationale d’art décoratif d’Aubusson in France, supported by a Fulbright grant. After returning to New York, Adams began to move beyond traditional tapestry, experimenting with the reverse side of weavings and incorporating rope, sisal, and found objects. She was part of a generation of artists—including Lenore Tawney and Sheila Hicks—who brought weaving into three-dimensional space and helped define American fibre art.

Alice Adams Artworks

Alice Adams’s contemporary art practice is defined by her continual exploration of the relationship between sculpture, architecture, and environment. Her early woven forms evolved into large-scale sculptures and site-specific installations, often using industrial and construction materials.

Fibre Art and Tapestry Innovations (1950s–1960s)

Adams’s early tapestries broke with tradition by using the reverse side as the primary surface and adding unconventional materials. Her work was included in the influential exhibition Woven Forms at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in 1963. By the mid-1960s, Adams was creating three-dimensional ‘structures’ that combined weaving with industrial materials, and her use of tarred rope, chain link, and steel cable anticipated later developments in sculpture. In 1966, Lucy Lippard included Adams in the seminal exhibition Eccentric Abstraction at Fischbach Gallery, alongside Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse.

Architectural Sculpture and Urban Space (late 1960s–1970s)

From the late 1960s, Adams’s sculptures explored architectural elements—walls, corners, columns, vaults—using materials like latex, wood lath, and plaster. Works such as Wall and Floor (1967) and Large Vault (1975) examine the boundaries between art, architecture, and environment, often referencing the cycles of construction and demolition in New York City. Her site-specific earthworks, including Shorings (1978, Artpark) and Mound for Viewing Slope and Sky (1981, Princeton University), used heavy equipment and earth to create sculptural interventions in the landscape.

Public Art and Major Commissions (1980s–present)

Since the 1980s, Adams has focused on permanent public art projects for transit systems, airports, campuses, and urban spaces across the United States. Notable works include Small Park with Arches (Toledo Botanical Garden, 1984), The Roundabout (Philadelphia), Scroll Circle (University of Delaware), Beaded Circle Crossing (Denver International Airport), and Stone and Glass Gardens (Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport). These projects often incorporate wood, stone, metal, water, and plantings, transforming public spaces into sites for gathering and contemplation.

Select Public Commissions

• Small Park with Arches, Toledo Botanical Garden (1984)
• The Roundabout, Center City Philadelphia
• Scroll Circle, University of Delaware
• Beaded Circle Crossing, Denver International Airport
• Stone and Glass Gardens, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport

Select Awards and Accolades

• Guggenheim Fellowship
• National Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Sculpture
• Fulbright Grant for study in France

Exhibitions

Alice Adams has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions at important galleries and institutions. Below is a selection of important exhibitions.

Solo Exhibitions

• Large Vault, Zürcher Gallery, New York (2024)
• White Coat, National Academy of Design, New York (2024)

Group Exhibitions

• Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams, The Courtauld Gallery, London (2025)
• Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019–2021)
• Materializing Six Years: Lucy Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2012)
• Decoys, Complexes and Triggers: Feminism and Land Art in the 1970s, Sculpture Center, New York (2008)

Alice Adams FAQs

Ocula | 2025