Oral history interview with Clinton Adams

Scope and Contents

An interview of Clinton Adams conducted 1995 August 2-3, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, at his home, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Scope and Contents

Adams discusses his family background; involvement in Hollywood "industry"; teaching at University of California, Los Angeles; service during WWII; first contact with New York's Museum of Modern Art; his decision to return to California; teaching painting at UCLA from 1946-1954, and friends and colleagues at that time including Lorser Feitelson, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Lynton R. Kistler and Annita Delano; the difficult political situation at UCLA and the "modernist" conflicts; his views on modernist and conservative groups; Stanton Macdonald-Wright; Adams' own work; his relationship to the ideas and nature of modernism; the Sanity in Art group and other art groups in Los Angeles; his opinion on which artists should have been included in the exhibition/catalogue "Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists"; his observations on art historical constructs; the history of New Mexican art; the idea of regionalism; the mythology of Santa Fe, New Mexico.; Southwestern art; the Tamarind Lithography Workshop during its New Mexico phase, its background and changes after the move from Los Angeles to the University of New Mexico, his fifteen years as director, major artists involved, and his desire to publish overlooked artists. Adams recalls Fritz Scholder, John Altoon, Leonard Edmondson, Ynez Johnston, Vincent Price, Jules Langsner, and Rico Lebrun.

Biographical / Historical

Clinton Adams (1918-2002) was a printmaker, painter, and art administrator of Los Angeles, California and Albuquerque, New Mexico.