Marion Adnams

Over 30 new works directly from the family estate

During her six-decade career, Marion Adnams forged a reputation as a painter of deeply distinctive and dream-like visions inspired by the Surrealist movement. Fascinated by stones, shells and other objects found in the countryside, she created disturbing juxtapositions to produce meditations on life and death. In 1964, during a walk in the Vaucluse, France, Adnams became captivated by a beautiful stone filled with holes: ‘The big stone had a personality. It stood silhouetted against the sky, silent and inscrutable, its many holes and cavities like un-seeing eyes. It was calm and dignified and yet at the same time there was something faintly disturbing about it’. Describing it as ‘a piece of modern sculpture’, Adnams posited, ‘Nature thought of the idea before Henry Moore!’. In her unpublished autobiography, The Enchanted Country, Adnams described how she set about creating this painting – A Candle of Understanding in Thine Heart – whose title is taken from the extra-canonical works of EstrasSetting the stone against a beautiful sky, ‘intense blue, changing to gold as it neared the horizon…a sunset calm’, she then juxtaposed it with nine snails – symbols of wisdom, persistence and harmony – with a tiny flame burning in each so that they became little lamps. ‘I cannot explain why I saw the shells as lamps, but I was quite certain about it’, Adnams explained. However, three years later, when she returned to France and visited the little museum at Apt, the reason behind her use of snail-lamps became crystal clear to her: ‘I saw there, for the first time, a collection of Roman votive lamps, made of clay, and found frequently on the hills near here. In shape and size, they resembled exactly my snail-shell lamps’.    From a catalogue essay by Sacha Llewellyn

Works FEATURED in this Exhibition

SKU: 11699

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Corn Doll Cornucopia

£2,250.00

SKU: 11698

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Corn Doll with Bird House and Flowers

£2,250.00

SKU: 11686

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Design for a Nautical Mural, 1930’s

£1,850.00

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SKU: 11682

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study two of a Variegated Thistle Leaf (Silybum marianum)
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SKU: 11683

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of Flowers with Bow
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SKU: 11689

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Stone with Holes (A)
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SKU: 11690

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Lavender Stump
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SKU: 11691

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Four Complicated Shells
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SKU: 11692

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Stone with Holes
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SKU: 11693

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of a Baby Bird and a Rabbit
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SKU: 11707

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of a Tree Trunk
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SKU: 11695

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of a Branch
SKU: 11696

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of flowers and vine

£675.00

SKU: 11697

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Corn dolly with figure riding Turkey

£2,250.00

SKU: 11700

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Plus ça change

£575.00

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SKU: 11694

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of baby birds
SKU: 11705

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of a Beetle

£450.00

SKU: 11706

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Orange Sun

£875.00

SKU: 11702

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of a Rooster

£350.00

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SKU: 11704

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of Snails
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SKU: 11708

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Chain
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SKU: 11709

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

The Twins, 1956
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SKU: 11710

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

The Hobby Horse
SKU: 11711

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Bell Tower

Original price was: £1,550.00.Current price is: £1,085.00.

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SKU: 11712

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study of Branches
SKU: 11714

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study for “Mr Prince’s Wagon – Storm”

£875.00

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SKU: 11715

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Stone with Holes
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SKU: 11680

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

3 studies of flowers
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SKU: 11681

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Seven Colloquy (Parrots), 1967
SKU: 11296

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Standing Nude, red ink

£2,250.00

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SKU: 11713

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Full Length Nude
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SKU: 11271

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Nature Princess
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SKU: 11269

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Witch and Bagpiper
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SKU: 11259

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Mount, Mount, My Soul
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SKU: 10420

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

A two part design for a Nautical Mural, 1930’s
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SKU: 10256

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Full length standing nude rear view
SKU: 10257

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Seated nude, profile view, circa 1930

£775.00

SKU: 10258

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Portrait of a girl seated three front quarter view, 1943

£400.00

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SKU: 10259

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study for The Twins, 1955
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SKU: 10253

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Study One of a Variegated Thistle Leaf (Silybum marianum), 1930’s
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SKU: 10254

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Eveline, circa 1943
SKU: 10255

Marion Adnams (1898 - 1995)

Seated nude, three quarter rear view, circa 1930

£855.00