Adamson was born in the Bronx, New York City. His parents[2][3] were George William Adamson, a mastercar builder for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, and Mary Lydia (Lily, née Howard). His father, born in Glasgow, Scotland, and his mother, born in Wigan, Lancashire, had moved to New York City from Bombay in 1910.
Following the death of his mother in February 1921, George Adamson sailed to England with his father, his Aunt Florence, and his two sisters, Marie and Dorothy, on the Cunard liner RMS Caronia, landing at Liverpool on July 10.[4] His father sailed back to New York in October 1921, where he died the following year.
George Adamson was educated at the Wigan Mining and Technical College[5] and the Liverpool City School of Art,[6] where he studied etching and engraving under Geoffrey Wedgwood RE.[7]
He exhibited at the Royal Academy (in 1937, 1939, 1940 and 1948) and contributed to Punch from 1939 to 1988.[7][8]
Between 1946 and 1953 Adamson taught engraving and illustration at Exeter School of Art, Exeter, Devon.
In 1954 he worked briefly in London with the designer John Morgan for the newly formed design group Byrne and Woudhuysen Limited (later Woudhuysen & Company Ltd), before setting himself up as a full-time illustrator and cartoonist.
Illustrator
The first book for which he did the drawings and dust-wrapper was Marjorie Vasey's The Day is Over (Epworth Press, 1954).
From the mid-1960s he illustrated Norman Hunter's Professor Branestawm books, providing a suitably zany continuity with W. Heath Robinson's illustrations from the 1930s.[2] Also in the 1960s, Adamson painted the jackets for Alan Garner's first two novels for children: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960) and The Moon of Gomrath (1963). In the same decade Adamson did the drawings for the first book of poems Ted Hughes wrote for children: Meet My Folks! (1961); this was followed by the drawings he did for Ted Hughes's first book of children's stories, How the Whale Became (1963), and those for the first edition of The Iron Man (1968).
In 1970, Adamson illustrated the book based on Richard Carpenter's television series Catweazle; this was followed in 1971 by the drawings he did for the book based on the second series, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac. In the 1980s, he illustrated the first five of the Richard Ingrams and John WellsDear Bill books for Private Eye.[7]
Besides work for books, Adamson undertook commissions to illustrate articles in periodicals, among them the Listener and Nursing Times. For the latter he drew more than two hundred illustrations between 1963 and 1983.
Cartoonist
Adamson published his first cartoon in Punch in September 1939 and his last in the Spectator in September 1994. Over the intervening fifty-five years his cartoons appeared not just in Punch but in the Tatler and Bystander, Time & Tide, the Peterborough column in the Daily Telegraph, Private Eye and other magazines.
One of the last things that happened under Hollowood's editorship was that Punch accepted a cover by George Adamson which showed Mr Punch sitting at an easel in the middle of a stretch of English countryside. Beside him was a book called How to Paint Like the Great Masters, and the landscape which Mr Punch was trying to paint was in fact modelled on the great masters… the Van Gogh trees on the right merged into a Samuel Palmer hillside, then into a Gainsborough or Constable field.
To make the landscape itself look like a collaboration between the masters was a brilliant idea.
George did it brilliantly and we all thought it was a brilliant cover. One of the first actions by the new editor, William Davis, was to reject the cover. He didn't understand it. Or, if he did understand it, he didn't think it was funny. Or, if he thought it was funny, he didn't think enough other people would find it was funny. No, let's face it; he didn't understand it.
—Miles Kington, The Punch Cartoon Album: 150 Years of Classic Cartoons.[10]
Engraver and etcher
At Liverpool City School of Art, Adamson developed what became a lifelong fascination with fine printing, especially dry-point, soft-ground etching and aquatint. In the early years after World War II he undertook several etchings for his own delight while teaching at Exeter School of Art.[11]
Between his portrait of his two-year-old son Peter One Morning (completed in 1950) and Killerton from the North (1979), however, there was a gap of many years during which he pursued his career as illustrator and cartoonist. He went back to printmaking with great enthusiasm in the late 1970s, exhibiting his works both new and old at the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers.[2][12] Among his later prints are portraits of John Ogdon (1979) and Patricia Beer (1982).[11]
George Adamson's work is held in several public collections, including the following:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (etching on loan from the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers)
Hughes (poems) and Gordon Crosse (music) Meet my Folks! A theme and relations. For speaker, children's chorus, children's percussion band, and adult percussion and instrumental players (Opus 10) (Oxford University Press, 1965)
Boswell Taylor The Door that Would Not Open (University of London Press, 1974)
Margaret Stuart Barry Boffy and the Mumford Ghosts (Harrap, 1974)
Roger Lancelyn-Green (ed.) Strange Adventures in Time (J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd & E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1974)
Norman Hunter A Box of Branestawms Puffin gift box (illus. George Adamson) containing The Incredible Adventures of Professor Bransestawm (illus. W. Heath Robinson); Professor Branestawm's Treasure Hunt (illus. George Adamson); Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm (illus. George Adamson); Professor Branestawm's Dictionary (cover by George Adamson) 1975
Norman Hunter Professor Branestawm up the Pole (Puffin, 1975)
Kaye Webb & Treld Bicknell (eds.) Puffin's Pleasure (Puffin hard covers featuring "The Hiders of King's House": short story with colour illustrations, pp.23–26 1976)
Norman Hunter Professor Branestawm's Great Revolution (Puffin, 1977)
L. H. EversDanny's Wonderful Uncle (Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1977?)
Ted Hughes Meet My Folks! (Puffin, incl. 4 new illustrations for 4 new poems, 1977)
Frank Waters The Day the Village Blushed (Harrap, 1977)
Richard Ingrams and John WellsDear Bill: The collected letters of Denis Thatcher (Private Eye/Andre Deutsch, 1980)
Stewart Love Great Marco Scandal (Harrap, 1980)
Benjamin Winterborn Changing Scenes (Oxford University Press, 1980)
Norman Hunter The Best of Branestawm (Bodley Head, 8 illustrations along with drawings by W. Heath Robinson, Jill McDonald and Derek Cousins, 1980)
Richard Ingrams and John Wells The Other Half: Further letters of Denis Thatcher (Private Eye/André Deutsch, 1981)
Richard Ingrams and John Wells One for the Road (Private Eye/André Deutsch, 1982)
Richard Ingrams and John Wells My Round (Private Eye/André Deutsch, 1983)
P. G. Wodehouse, selected with an introduction by Christopher Falkus Short Stories (The Folio Society, 1983)
Barbara Ireson (ed.) Faber Book of Nursery Verse (Faber & Faber, illustrations inside only; cover design by Pentagram with illustration by Dan Fern, 1983)
Richard Ingrams and John Wells Bottoms Up! (Private Eye/André Deutsch, 1984)
Ted Hughes Meet My Folks! (Faber & Faber, incl. 4 Puffin edition illustrations and 1 new one for new poem, 1987)
Ted Hughes How the Whale Became (Faber & Faber, new cover, 1989)
Mark Bryant (ed.) Airborne Free: Red Devils and Other Rare Breeds (Leo Cooper, cartoon contribution, 1990)
Ted Hughes Meet My Folks! (Faber & Faber, paperback edition, new cover, Pentagram, 1993)
Ted Hughes How the Whale Became (Faber & Faber, new cover, 1993)
Norman Hunter The Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm (Random House, new paperback edition, 2003)
Ted Hughes The Dreamfighter and Other Creation Tales (Faber & Faber, incl. a reprinting, with Adamson's drawings, of the stories in How the Whale Became, 2003)
Ted Hughes Meet My Folks! (Faber & Faber, cover by Catherine Rayner, drawings by George Adamson, 2011)
Ted Hughes How the Whale Became (Faber & Faber, cover by Catherine Rayner, drawings by George Adamson, 2011)
Record sleeves and CD covers
Gordon Crosse (music); Ted Hughes (poems) Meet My Folks! A theme and relations. For speaker, children's chorus, children's percussion band, and adult percussion and instrumental players (Opus 10) (EMI, 1965)
William Alwyn: Fantasy - Waltzes, 12 Preludes John Ogdon, piano (Chandos, record and CD, 1985)
Kenn Group Exhibition, Exeter School of Art, September 1947
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery: "Exhibition of Drawings, Paintings, Sculpture and Craft: Work by members of the Exeter School of Art Staff", 27 June to 29 July 1950
University of Exeter, Devonshire House, drawings, 1962
Wilhelm Busch Museum [Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst Wilhelm Busch], Hanover: Punch drawings, 1963, toured Germany 1964
Drawings from BBC Publications, 1963
East Kent Folkestone Arts Centre: "Cartoonists of the British School", 1968
Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter: "Adamson Exhibition", a one-man show, 1968
Galerie Genot, Paris: "L'Humour Actuel franco-britannique. 200 dessins" [Franco-British Humour Today: 200 drawings], 20 November 1974 to 10 December 1974, but extended[13]
Ilkley Literature Festival: An exhibition in honour of Ted Hughes, devised and presented by Keith Sagar to mark the poet's involvement in the Ilkley Literature Festival, May 27–31, 1975 (Church House, Church Street, Ilkley)
The London Gallery, N. La Cienega, Los Angeles: "Famous British Cartoonists", 19 May to 15 June 1975
The University of Liverpool, Senate House, Abercromby Square: "Contemporary British Artists: an exhibition of work donated to the Rural Preservation Association", 1977
Market Print Gallery, Exeter: "Etchings", 30 September to 31 October 1978
SouthEast Art Centres, "Fantasy Books and Illustrations", 1979
Ilkley Literature Festival: "Lord Gnome Show", 1979
The Library, Victoria & Albert Museum: "Illustrations to Ted Hughes Poems", 1979. Exhibition organized by Mark Haworth-Booth, Assistant Keeper of Photographs, Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs
City Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester: "The Art of Ted Hughes: An exhibition to mark the poet's fiftieth birthday, devised and presented by Keith Sagar", 12 August to 7 September 1980
The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, 17 January to 12 February 1981
The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, 8 to 28 June 1981
The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, 20 March to 10 April 1982 (Centenary Exhibition)
Hamilton Gallery, London: "Eye Art at Hamilton's, drawings from the Denis Thatcher letters books", 1982
Maison du Champ de Mars, Rennes: "Exposition des artistes d'Exeter", 1982: etchings exhibited: Filming The Onedin Line, Peacocks, St Andrews Cathedral, Caerphilly Castle
The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, 30 October to 26 November 1982
The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, 26 October to 27 November 1983
The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, 18 September to 11 October 1987
The Royal Festival Hall, London: "Punch 150th Anniversary Exhibition", 11 October to 17 November 1991
British Library: "The Page is Printed: a Ted Hughes exhibition," 7 November 2003 to 24 February 2004
McLean Museum, Greenock, Inverclyde's War: an exhibition to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of hostilities, August 2005: reproduction of several of Adamson's wartime drawings of RAF Greenock
Cartoon Museum, London: "Private Eye at 45": an exhibition to mark the 45th anniversary of the founding of Private Eye, 26 October 2006 to 4 February 2007: featuring two of Adamson's drawings illustrating "Auberon Waugh's Diary" and an unpublished drawing to mark Private Eye's 21st birthday in 1983
Victoria and Albert Museum, London: "Private Eye: The First 50 Years", 18 October 2011 to 8 January 2012: featuring Adamson's cover drawing for One for the Road
Victoria and Albert Museum, London: "George W. Adamson: A Twentieth-Century Illustrator", 3 April to 30 September 2012
British Library (Folio Society Gallery), London: "Picture This: Children's Illustrated Classics", 4 October 2013 to 26 January 2014: featuring Adamson's cover design for The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
Adamson was the winner of the P.G. Wodehouse Centenary Illustration Award in Punch in 1981 and was subsequently commissioned to illustrate an anthology of P.G. Wodehouse short stories for the Folio Society published in 1983.[14]
Mark Bryant (16 March 2005). "Obituary: George Adamson". The Independent. Influenced by classical artists such as Velazquez, Rembrandt, Goya and Hokusai, Adamson worked on paper, gesso surfaces and scraperboard, and used pen and ink, wash, charcoal, chalk, gouache, oils and other media. His training as an etcher, engraver and graphic designer also had an effect on his illustration and cartoon work and, to assist the speed of production and more accurate printing, he made extensive use of transparent acetate film to separate line drawings from painted backgrounds.
A description of the exhibition and of its preparation and private view is given in Adamson and Jackson, Footloose in France, Cambridge: John Adamson, 2023, ISBN978-1-898565-18-5, pp. 183–4, 186–7 and 206–8.
Adamson, George (contributor) (1984), 'Eleven Printmakers: Approaches, Opinions, Experiences', The Journal of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers & Engravers, no. 6, 1984, pp.18–19
Connolly, Joseph, Eighty Years of Book Cover Design, Faber & Faber, London, 2009 ISBN978-0571-24000-5
Desmet, Anne, and Anthony Dyson, Printmakers: The Directory, A & C Black, London, 2006, p.3 ISBN978-0-7136-7387-6
