Norman Adams: Pilgrim’s Progress
Title: Pilgrim’s Progress
Artist: Norman Adams (1927–2005, British)
Location: St Anselm’s, Kennington, London (C of E)
Date: 1970-1
In 1970 the church of St Anselm’s, Kennington, planned to redecorate its interior and invited Norman Adams to paint murals for the two side walls. After some deliberation between Adams and the Vicar at the time, Pilgrim’s Progress was settled on as a theme and Adams undertook an abstract series working from dark to light in a modern yet expressionist manner. The consecutive panels are marouflaged to the walls with deeper panels at the sanctuary end signalling their beginning and end of the narrative.
Norman Adams was a leading British, religious painter of the 20th century. Born to working class parents in Warrington, Adams attended Harrow School of Art until 1947 and the Royal College of Art from 1948 to 1951. Throughout his career he held a variety of prestigious academic posts including the professorship of painting at Newcastle University from 1981–86.
Describing himself as a ‘compulsive believer’ Adams drew on Christianity and others religions for inspiration rather than instruction. Adams seems to have connected the countryside with spiritual inspiration, and in the final decade of his life he continued to paint enormous watercolours with biblical titles composed entirely from his imagination.
He was elected a Royal Academician in 1972 and was Keeper of the Royal Academy from 1986 until his retirement.
Further Information
Medium: Oil painting
Size: each mural is 20.5 x 3m (4m at each end)
Permanent display
See Adams’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ on the Ecclesiart map here.
Commissioner: The PCC and The Edwin Abbey Mural Fund and the E Vincent Harris Fund for Mural Decoration
Other artworks in churches by Norman Adams: Stations of the Cross, 1975–6, (with Anna Adams) Our Lady of Lourdes, Milton Keynes, Stations of the Cross, St Mary’s Church (The Hidden Gem), Manchester, 1995