Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/dame-ethel-walker-2115" aria-label="More by Dame Ethel Walker" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Dame Ethel Walker</a>
Hon Mrs Adams
Purchased 1938
actions: postures and motions
Adams, Mildred, Hon.
adults
animals: mammals
cat
chair
clothing and personal items
furnishings
hat, cap
individuals: female
named individuals
objects
people
portraits
sitting
woman
<p>Walker was a self-motivated and unusually confident figure on the British scene at the turn-of-the-century. Her range of subject matter was considerable, including landscapes and imaginative decorative compositions, but she was best known for her portraits and still-lifes.</p><p>The restricted palette that Walker uses here, in what she herself called ‘rather a marvellous portrait’, does not subdue her energetic vision. The sitter - the daughter of the Lord Chief Justice - brims with life. Mrs Adams' animated expression, the free brushwork and enjoyment of paint make this canvas typical of Walker's portraiture.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2010</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
9 October 2009 – 23 February 2010
2010-02-23
9 October 2009 – 23 February 2010
2010-02-23
2009-10-09
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-10-09
Independently Modern
Collection based display
The Hon. Mrs Adams
support: 902 × 743 mm
frame: 1076 × 922 × 75 mm
Purchased 1938
<p>Walker was a self-motivated and unusually confident figure on the British scene at the turn-of-the-century. Her range of subject matter was considerable, including landscapes and imaginative decorative compositions, but she was best known for her portraits and still-lifes. 
<br/>
<br/>The restricted palette that Walker uses here, in what she herself called ‘rather a marvellous portrait’, does not subdue her energetic vision. The sitter - the daughter of the Lord Chief Justice - brims with life.  Mrs Adams' animated expression, the free brushwork and enjoyment of paint make this canvas typical of Walker's portraiture.
<br/></p>

Display caption
2010-02-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N04944</b> THE HON. MRS ADAMS <i>c.</i> 1901
<br/> </p>
<p>Not inscribed.</p>
<p>Canvas, 35 1/2×29 1/4 (90×74).
<br/>Purchased from the artist (Knapping and Clarke Funds) 1938.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> N.E.A.C., summer 1918 (74).</p>
<p>The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> dates from about 1901 and the sitter is Mildred, youngest child and only daughter of Sir John Duke, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–94), Lord Chief Justice of England, and his first wife, Lady Jane Fortescue (<i>née</i> Seymour, died 1878). Mildred married Charles Warren Adams.</p>
<p>Another portrait, ‘The late Hon. Mrs Adams, daughter of the late Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of England’, was exhibited at the Royal <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a>, 1944 (351). This is almost certainly the same <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> later shown at Agnew's in November–December 1947 (45) and included in the Tate Gallery Memorial Exhibition of May–June 1952 (4), <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a>, 35×27 in., lent by the artist's executors. This other portrait shows her reading.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-06T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions Adams, Mildred, Hon. adults animals: mammals cat chair clothing and personal items furnishings hat, cap individuals: female named individuals objects people portraits sitting woman