portrait and marine painter, lithographer and professional photographer, was born in Hawick, Roxburghshire, Scotland, on 27 June 1829. He came to South Australia in 1839 aboard the Recovery with his parents, James and Elizabeth née Beveridge, his three brothers and three sisters. J. H. Adamson worked as an artist in Adelaide during the 1850s, first as a topographical watercolourist and lithographer then advertised in 1854 55 as a portrait painter. In February 1854 the South Australian Register favourably reviewed a large exhibition of 75 of his pictures, mainly watercolours and sketches of the country around Adelaide and 'two or three oil paintings’. He was advertising in the South Australian Register in November: 'Drawing – J.H. Adamson intends opening an evening class for instruction in the above art. For further information apply at his studio, Flinders Street, opposite Government Offices.’

In 1856 he made a lithograph of the Goolwa , the first paddle-steamer on the Murray River, and the following March was awarded a prize of 10 guineas at the inaugural exhibition of the South Australian Society of Arts for his painting First Steamer on the Murray – Surprise of the Natives . He also showed four Fruit Pieces and Napoleon Reviewing his Phantom Troops , the latter presumably a lithograph (or possibly a copy) after the painting by John Michael Skipper .

Later in 1856 Adamson moved to Melbourne. He was advertising as a photographer from 212 Bourke Street in 1857, from 67 Collins Street East in 1857-58. A photographic panorama of the city taken from Emerald Hill, made up from four glass-plate negatives, was shown at the 1858 Victorian Society of Fine Arts Exhibition. His portrait and landscape 'positive collodion pictures on glass’ (ambrotypes) shown with the Victorian Industrial Society that year were awarded a certificate of merit. In 1859, still listed as a photographer at the same address in Collins Street, he was in partnership with Arthur S. Jackson .

Adamson also continued to paint. The Argus of 8 September 1859 reported: 'A very effective-looking oil painting of the Ladybird steamer showing a blue light to the wreck of the Admella on the night of the 12th August, is being exhibited in a shop-window in Collins-street, near Swanston-street. The artist is a Mr. Adamson of Collingwood, and it is understood that the subject was taken from a sketch made by Mr. Johnson [ Johnston ], who visited the spot. Whatever its merits as a faithful representation of that terrible scene may be, the painting has many good points of its own; and the turbid sea, over which the lurid blue light is thrown, the storm-driven clouds, and the relative positions of the Ladybird and the wreck, make up a picture well worthy the inspection of the lover of art’. The following month, it was exhibited with the Adelaide Society of Arts, along with its companion painting, Rescue of the Survivors of the Admella by the Portland Lifeboat . The latter was awarded the society’s major annual prize of 10 guineas.

J.H. Adamson was exhibiting with the NSW Academy of Art and the Agricultural Society at Sydney in 1874-75. He showed Maryla , Lyre Bird’s Home ('a representation of the first make-shift home of a free selector’), Fern Grove, Burrawong Falls and other landscape and still-life paintings with the Academy. He was awarded a certificate of merit for a still-life of melons in 1875. The Sydney Mail critic praised its 'correct’ drawing but objected to altogether 'too much pre-Raphaelite working up of detail’. Adamson was advised 'to moderate his love of high colouring, and study breadth more than minutiae’. In 1874 he showed a landscape, Sierra Nevada, California , with the Agricultural Society. Ultimately he moved back to Adelaide, where he died on 2 May 1902.

Writers:

Staff Writer

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011