February – May 2026

Anna Adams – An Exhibition of Ceramics, Watercolours, Prints and Poetry.  Low Wood Bay, Windermere, Cumbria.

Please Note: In the exhibition at Windermere the exhibits are to show the range of work produced by Anna: Watercolours, ceramics and poetry books. There are a small number of items for sale, however the majority of exhibits are for display purposes only.

Anna Adams was born in London in 1926. She was educated at Harrow Art School, and Hornsey College of Art, and worked as a designer, a freelance artist and art teacher. In later years she devoted the greater part of her creative energies to writing.

Firing thoughts: exploring the relationship between ceramics and drawing. 2007.

Anna was one of the exhibitors in an exhibition held in 2007 at Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections and the Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University. She explained how in the 1950s she felt that she should give up the visual arts to pursue her writing. However she said…….

After a few years I craved to make things that I could touch……. So I decided to work at both arts; there is no need to sacrifice one art form for another.”

     Anna commented on her ceramic bird sculptures: 

I found that I had much more original ways of formalising bird forms than came to me for the human form. Perhaps I had done too much life-drawing…. I was always aware of the mystery that animates living things. I am also conscious that a bird, or hare, or a cow also sees me when I look at it. They are as real as I am.

Many people know Anna for the watercolour paintings of Ribblesdale and sensitive figurative works in clay. Her ceramic blackbirds are a striking example of her handling of clay and ability to capture the essence of the world around her. Examples of her ceramic blackbirds are in the collection at Blackwell The Arts and Crafts House, Windermere.

A published poet, Anna began to write seriously in both prose and verse in the early 1960s. Her first poem was printed in 1969 and Peterloo Press published her first book, A Reply to Intercepted Mail, in 1979 as part of its Peterloo Poets series. She produced various publications throughout her career, around  twenty books and pamphlets. Anna was poetry editor of The Green Book from 1989 to 1992. She was a member of Poetry Society and the Piccadilly Poets Committee.

Her friend and publisher John Killick commented on two particular literary works:

There were two prose, poetry and art compilations of real distinction in Island Chapters (1991) and Life on Limestone (1994). The former stems from the decade that she and her husband and their two small children spent on the island of Scarp in the Outer Hebrides. The latter is a reflection of upwards of 30 years living in a converted farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales.