In his 90th year John Adam reckons he’s still learning, one canvas at a time
By Catherine Watson
IN HIS 90th year, John Adam reckons he's still learning, one canvas at a time.
Adam speaks candidly of self-doubt and the precarious nature of creative confidence. “From the ’60s up to the ’80s I was very confident in what I was doing. I’m not so confident now, but that’s just physical stuff. I haven’t lost my delight in painting.”
He quotes Cézanne, whom he calls his mentor. “He wrote a letter to his son in which he said ‘Painting is very difficult for me. I paint very slowly now. I can never capture the beauty and majesty of the landscape.’ And I relate to both of those things. It’s always an attempt and you never quite get it.”
IN HIS 90th year, John Adam reckons he's still learning, one canvas at a time.
Adam speaks candidly of self-doubt and the precarious nature of creative confidence. “From the ’60s up to the ’80s I was very confident in what I was doing. I’m not so confident now, but that’s just physical stuff. I haven’t lost my delight in painting.”
He quotes Cézanne, whom he calls his mentor. “He wrote a letter to his son in which he said ‘Painting is very difficult for me. I paint very slowly now. I can never capture the beauty and majesty of the landscape.’ And I relate to both of those things. It’s always an attempt and you never quite get it.”
Despite those doubts, the Phillip Island artist is enjoying a purple patch. He has completed a major commission for the new Cowes Community Hospital and celebrated the return of his historical mural of Phillip Island to public view in Cowes.
This year Berninneit Gallery will host Vision and Reality, a retrospective of his works dating back over 70 years, including works completed this year.
“I’ve been very lucky,” Adam says simply. “I've been able to keep doing it. There are periods when I get depressed, but I've never stopped painting.”
It’s a statement that echoes his long and unwavering commitment to art, a discipline that has sustained him through the hard graft of teaching, grief, self-doubt and now the physical limitations of age. These days, he says, he can only concentrate for an hour at a time, but he still paints every day, chasing something elusive that first caught his eye as a teenager.
That was when he first saw the paintings of Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Hans Heysen at the National Gallery, and was forever changed. “I wanted to know how to paint like that,” he recalls. “I kept going back to a painting by this bloke called Cézanne. The perspective was wrong, and the colour was in patches. But there was a mystery about it I wanted to solve – I never have.”
This year Berninneit Gallery will host Vision and Reality, a retrospective of his works dating back over 70 years, including works completed this year.
“I’ve been very lucky,” Adam says simply. “I've been able to keep doing it. There are periods when I get depressed, but I've never stopped painting.”
It’s a statement that echoes his long and unwavering commitment to art, a discipline that has sustained him through the hard graft of teaching, grief, self-doubt and now the physical limitations of age. These days, he says, he can only concentrate for an hour at a time, but he still paints every day, chasing something elusive that first caught his eye as a teenager.
That was when he first saw the paintings of Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and Hans Heysen at the National Gallery, and was forever changed. “I wanted to know how to paint like that,” he recalls. “I kept going back to a painting by this bloke called Cézanne. The perspective was wrong, and the colour was in patches. But there was a mystery about it I wanted to solve – I never have.”
Adam's retrospective, opening on July 24, takes its title from this eternal artistic struggle. It will include works that span his career, from early landscape paintings to his most recent canvas, still wet on the easel: a simple yet meditative image of a seagull and its reflection.
Among the works will be a portrait of his daughter Julie, a talented artist who suffered from a mental illness and died suddenly in 2018. Her death has been an enduring grief for Adam, and one that he has processed partly through his art.
There’s also a long-hidden illustrated book he created for Julie when she was eight. “I’ve never shown it to anyone, but I think after all these years it should be seen. It’s very much part of how I evolved as an artist—because there was always that technical side, but also the imaginative side.”
Among the works will be a portrait of his daughter Julie, a talented artist who suffered from a mental illness and died suddenly in 2018. Her death has been an enduring grief for Adam, and one that he has processed partly through his art.
There’s also a long-hidden illustrated book he created for Julie when she was eight. “I’ve never shown it to anyone, but I think after all these years it should be seen. It’s very much part of how I evolved as an artist—because there was always that technical side, but also the imaginative side.”
Adam is the archetype of the autodidact, an artist more interested in curiosity than careerism. His first formal training began in his final year as a student at Melbourne Grammar when the school employed a young painter part time three days a week. It happened to be a young John Brack and Adam was his sole pupil. Serendipity.
“He was fantastic, a lovely man,” Adam recalls. “He’d bring in drawings he’d done and talk about them. He didn’t talk a lot, but you listened when he did.”
Adam's father, a successful businessman, pushed him to study commerce at Melbourne University. “I hated it, it made me very unhappy and I knew I was going to be unhappy for life and so I decided to study art Swinburne Technical College.
“My father went to Swinburne and asked them to talk me out of it.” Adam laughs now. “He only wanted the best for me, and he thought I was choosing the worst option.”
At Swinburne, Adam clashed early with the department head after failing to complete his first assignment, on “beauty”. “I couldn’t paint beauty. I didn’t have the skills. I said to him ‘If I could paint beauty, I wouldn’t waste my time at this art school’.”
Despite the rocky start, he absorbed all he could from one teacher in particular, Scott Pendlebury. “He didn’t have a good imagination but he was a very good technician. And I learned how to paint from him.”
Technique, however, was only half the equation. Adam is, by his own admission, driven more by imagination. “I’ve always got hundreds of ideas. I dream a lot and in my dreams I do paintings. I see other people’s paintings. I think: I’ll be able to do that when I wake up.”
His style is intuitive and instinctive—he paints without a fixed destination. “I like painting where I don’t know where it’s going, and the painting tells me,” he says. “The problem is that if you’re not careful, you overwork it and have to scrape it off again. You’ve got to know when to stop.”
It’s a sensibility honed over decades, including 15 years teaching in technical schools and two decades teaching art at Melbourne Grammar – an ironic twist of fate, returning to the school from which he had once felt so alienated. “I only had a brief interview. They said, ‘Oh, you know the ropes.’ So it did come in handy after all.”
While teaching gave him structure, it also sapped his energy. “I still painted all the time, but it often wasn’t up to scratch because I didn’t have the energy,” he says. “When I came to Phillip Island, I had just given up teaching and I was full of life and energy. It was a very productive time.”
Adam’s work draws deeply from the natural world, the mystery of light, form, colour—and failure. “Brett Whiteley described painting as a ‘difficult pleasure’. That’s spot on.”
Despite a lifetime of painting, he remains unattached to his finished works. “After I finish a painting, I’m detached from it. I don’t care whether I ever see it again. It’s the next one I’m interested in.”
The vision is still just ahead—waiting for him to catch it and make it real.
Vision and Reality, a John Adam restrospective, runs at Berninneit from July 24 to August 6.
“He was fantastic, a lovely man,” Adam recalls. “He’d bring in drawings he’d done and talk about them. He didn’t talk a lot, but you listened when he did.”
Adam's father, a successful businessman, pushed him to study commerce at Melbourne University. “I hated it, it made me very unhappy and I knew I was going to be unhappy for life and so I decided to study art Swinburne Technical College.
“My father went to Swinburne and asked them to talk me out of it.” Adam laughs now. “He only wanted the best for me, and he thought I was choosing the worst option.”
At Swinburne, Adam clashed early with the department head after failing to complete his first assignment, on “beauty”. “I couldn’t paint beauty. I didn’t have the skills. I said to him ‘If I could paint beauty, I wouldn’t waste my time at this art school’.”
Despite the rocky start, he absorbed all he could from one teacher in particular, Scott Pendlebury. “He didn’t have a good imagination but he was a very good technician. And I learned how to paint from him.”
Technique, however, was only half the equation. Adam is, by his own admission, driven more by imagination. “I’ve always got hundreds of ideas. I dream a lot and in my dreams I do paintings. I see other people’s paintings. I think: I’ll be able to do that when I wake up.”
His style is intuitive and instinctive—he paints without a fixed destination. “I like painting where I don’t know where it’s going, and the painting tells me,” he says. “The problem is that if you’re not careful, you overwork it and have to scrape it off again. You’ve got to know when to stop.”
It’s a sensibility honed over decades, including 15 years teaching in technical schools and two decades teaching art at Melbourne Grammar – an ironic twist of fate, returning to the school from which he had once felt so alienated. “I only had a brief interview. They said, ‘Oh, you know the ropes.’ So it did come in handy after all.”
While teaching gave him structure, it also sapped his energy. “I still painted all the time, but it often wasn’t up to scratch because I didn’t have the energy,” he says. “When I came to Phillip Island, I had just given up teaching and I was full of life and energy. It was a very productive time.”
Adam’s work draws deeply from the natural world, the mystery of light, form, colour—and failure. “Brett Whiteley described painting as a ‘difficult pleasure’. That’s spot on.”
Despite a lifetime of painting, he remains unattached to his finished works. “After I finish a painting, I’m detached from it. I don’t care whether I ever see it again. It’s the next one I’m interested in.”
The vision is still just ahead—waiting for him to catch it and make it real.
Vision and Reality, a John Adam restrospective, runs at Berninneit from July 24 to August 6.
At work in his studio, set up in the carport: "It’s always an attempt and you never quite get it.”