Exhibition Production Diary continued

Tom Adams' Agatha Christie Cover Story

I am delighted and somewhat relieved to say that after a number of delays for unavoidable reasons, yesterday Sunday 5^th February Tom brought me what he calls his scrap box.

It took only a quick glance through the material and I could see, that now we have the exhibition I was hoping to assemble.

First of all I have to compile an archive and find a way to get some order into all of these bits and pieces and make sure they are adequately protected. Only then will I be able to cross- reference the photos, sketches, personal reference materials, newspaper cut outs, lists etc. with the original paintings I am hoping to exhibit.

 As I am working on the archive and reading through the materials, the story vaguely is starting to formulate in my head. It is like walking through a foggy landscape, I see glimpses of pictures appearing, the visions changing as more and other images emerge. To me this stage is one of the pleasures but also one of the most intense periods of the process of designing an exhibition.

Additional progress to date:

• Gradually some of the original paintings are coming together from across the country and abroad.
• It looks like the short film is under way
• The collection of the actual original paperback editions with Tom’s covers is steadily growing.
• Negotiations with two more touring venues have started
• Card packs will be on sale at the National Trust by Easter

As was expected, we still have difficulties in locating some key paintings. With good fortune though, we have found some unexpected treasures.

'Labours of Hercules' study of bird skeleton Tom has used in the painting

Certainly the project is taking shape and with the story finally emerging, the next major development that will require my concentrated effort, will be publicity and marketing.

Draft Press Release  

Tom Adams’ Agatha Christie Cover Story

August – October 2012, Torquay Museum is hosting an enticing exhibition of the remarkable collaboration between Tom Adams and Agatha Christie. On show will be a beautiful series of original cover paintings along side an array of Tom’s sketches, photographs and artefacts, research materials and a short film telling the story of this legendary cover artist.

Tom Adams is an American born, British artist of Scottish Canadian ancestry, educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths College, London. Adams began his art career painting pub signs, writing and illustrating articles in Eagle, Girl and Swift comics. For a time he worked as an art consultant for various companies, including his own, Adams Design Associates for whom he produced large murals.

Adams has also worked on several science-fiction films as concept and matte painter and developing special effects for directors including Stanley Kubrick (2001 – A Space Odyssey) Nick Roeg and Mike Hodges (Flash Gordon) and Tobe Hooper (Life Force).

Adams has been commissioned by various international publishers to illustrate book covers for many best-selling authors – Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, John Fowles, Peter Straub and many others. His paintings are in private collections worldwide. He has exhibited in group and one man shows in London, Marbella, Toronto, Tokyo, Dublin and Sydney. His UK exhibitions include The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, The Portal, Fulham, Calvert, ICA and RBA galleries in London and Gallery Terracina, Exeter. Married to children’s author, Georgie Adams, Tom lives and works in the Kensey Valley, North Cornwall, where he continues to paint, print and publish his own limited editions.

The creative partnership of Agatha Christie and Tom Adams that resulted in more than 100 paperback cover paintings over a period of eighteen years, is a unique relationship between author and artist and unlikely to be repeated. These paintings are now recognised internationally as iconic and standalone examples of twentieth century cover art. Most of the originals are in widely dispersed private collections, but a significant number of them have been published in signed, limited edition prints and are collected worldwide.

Tom Adams has personally selected twelve of his book cover images for a specially-produced Agatha Christie card pack – the first in a series of card collections featuring some of the artist’s best work. ‘Adams is a blender of acute realism and haunting fantasy . . . a painstaking craftsman with a special genius for suiting image to story. His secret as cover illustrator lies, it seems to me, above all in his capacity for being oblique, yet so presenting this obliquity that it constitutes a lure. His work belongs to one of the pleasantest traditions in English art, and goes back to the great woodcut school of the 1860s; and our own day.’ (John Fowles’ Introduction to Tom Adams’ Agatha Christie Story 1981)

Cristina Burke-Trees, Curator