Charles Partridge Adams

by Sarah Judson December 03, 2012

We enjoyed an exhibit and talk last Saturday at Saks Galleries in Denver. In conjunction with the upcoming Charles Partridge Adams exhibit at the Denver Art Museum which opens on December 16, author and historian Steve Andreas discussed Adams' career and works. Adams is widely considered to have been Colorado's finest landscape artist. He is best-known for his stunning views of snowy mountain peaks in early morning or sunset light, or wreathed in storm clouds, and for his luminous sunset and twilight paintings of the river bottoms near Denver. He worked in both oil and watercolor, as well as detailed field sketches such as the one at right, done in blue ink. He also sketched in pencil, noting local colors for reference back in the studio. Adams moved to Denver at the age of 18 with his family in 1876. He was largely self-taught, visiting the studios of George Inness, Worthington Whittredge and William Keith and also traveling in Europe. He established a studio in Denver in 1893 and began spending summers in Rocky Mountain National Park in 1900. He also painted up and down the Rockies from Glacier National Park to Arizona and New Mexico. He moved to southern California in 1917 and continued painting there until his death in Pasadena in 1942. The Denver Art Museum will exhibit 37 of the best of his oil and watercolor paintings depicting Colorado and will show the diversity of his work, which includes such styles as realism, tonalism and impressionism. The exhibit will be on view until September 8, 2013.   This gouache (right) is a vivid and detailed 8"x10" painting.
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