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Presentation: Framed
Signed and dated 04, watercolour, 12 X 12Q ins. (30.5 X 31.8 cms.)
Provenance: Jas Wood, thence by descent.

Adams was greatly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, with whom his father was personally acquainted from his school days. The subject is inspired by the Greek myth in which Leda, queen of Sparta, was courted by Jupiter, disguised as a swan.

Although never worked into a major painting numerous studies exist for The Postman . In these the basic composition remains the same: postman Setford enters from the right; the artist, his wife Evelyn, and son John (leaning on a gun) stand centre left, by the large cherry tree (cat. no. 120). Emerging from the left are Monnington’s neighbours, the sculptor A.H.Gerrard and his wife, the painter, Kathleen Leigh-Pemberton, (whose studio is seen behind). The other, distant figures, are Mr. and Mrs Young, emerging from their home in the Bothy, (see cat no. 110)

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William Dacres Adams 1864-1951

Painter and lithographer of portraits and architectural subjects, born in Reading. He studied law in Birmingham, but in 1884 abandoned his studies to train at the Birmingham School of Art. He subsequently (1886–90) studied at Sir Hubert Herkomer’s Bushey School of Art and in Munich, Germany. Adams was a member of NPS and showed extensively at the Fine Art Society (three one-man shows during the 1920s), as well as Leicester Galleries, with Ridley Art Club, ROI and RA. His work was greatly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites (with whom his father was acquainted from school days). Examples of his work are in the collections of The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Worcester College, Oxford; Museum of Fine Art, San Francisco and Wellington Art Gallery, New Zealand. Adams Lived in London, then Lewes, Sussex.