Elected ARSA: 11 December 1884
RSA : 02 October 1892
Joseph Denovan Adam, RSA, RSW, specialised in painting the Highland landscape and local farm life, especially Highland cattle. Born on 19 September 1841 in Glasgow, Denovan Adam’s family moved to London in order to advance his father’s career. Along with receiving an early education in art from his father, he studied at what is now known as the Royal College of Art and attended life-classes at Langham and the Royal Academy. Father and son also regularly toured Scotland together on sketching holidays.
Denovan Adam experienced public and critical success throughout his life, exhibiting at the RSA, Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours—where he was elected RSW in 1880—and held large solo exhibitions in 1890 and 1895, both at Dowdeswell Gallery in London. In the early 1870s, he moved back to Scotland, settling in Stirling in 1887. He also leased a home and small farm nearby in Craigmill. It was there that Denovan Adam founded a school where he taught animal drawing and painting. For models, students had access to dogs and livestock, including his small herd of Highland cattle. In addition to pens for the animals, Denovan Adam built a glass studio so that classes could continue during inclement weather.
Elected ARSA in 1884, it was in 1892, the year after he exhibited his Diploma Work, Evening, Strathspey, that he was made an RSA. In 1894 the painting was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Salon. Shortly after these successes, suffering from nephritis, Denovan Adam was forced to move to Glasgow and died at home on 22 April 1896.
