Museum display celebrates work of surrealist artist

A new display has been created at Derby Museums’ Museum and Art Gallery celebrating the work of surrealist artist Marion Adnams.

Born in Derby in 1898, Adnams forged a reputation as a painter of deeply distinctive and dream-like visions inspired by the Surrealist movement.

Although she worked full time as an art teacher, as well as caring for her mother, Adnams exhibited her work in London and many regional art galleries from the late 1930s.

Today, examples of her paintings and drawings can be found in numerous public collections including the National Galleries of Scotland and Manchester Art Gallery.

Derby Museums is the home to the UK’s largest collection of Adnams’ work, recently enhanced by the donation of her personal archive, courtesy of her estate.

The collection features items as diverse as family photographs, books, and postcards, through to sketchbooks, paintbrushes, paintings, and collected objects such as shells and vine roots.

The new display, Marion Adnams: Into ‘the Enchanted Country’ aims to present a comprehensive and rounded picture of Adnams and her accomplishments.

The display is the first step towards creating a space that highlights the breadth of her work.

Future additions to the display will include items from Adnams’ personal archive, such as rarely before seen objects that she collected and used as a reference in her work.

Lucy Bamford, senior curator of art at Derby Museums, said “With our new gallery, we encourage visitors to trace the development of Adnams’ ideas for paintings, many of which sprang from objects foraged on walks or specimens glimpsed on visits to the Museum and Art Gallery, alongside a broader interest in the natural world that she inherited from her parents.

“Drawings show how she reimagined these encounters, playing with scale and contrast, before the realisation of her surreal visions in paint.

“She described this process in language reminiscent of taking a journey; of ‘venturing into the Enchanted Country’.”

“Our new Adnams’ gallery is nestled between a display dedicated to fellow Derby artist, Joseph Wright, and our Nature Gallery.

“We hope to entice visitors to discover this unique and deeply unusual artist for themselves.”