A beautiful original oil painting by Brian Lemesle Adams titled St Peter’s Warf, Hammersmith - London. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1988. Original price £380.

Exhibition labels on reverse. There is a bit of wear to the frame.

The overall frame size is 35.5cm x 41cm. 

Brian ‘Beak’ Adams was born in 1923 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire. A gifted draughtsman with a natural aptitude for design, his talents were encouraged by the sympathetic art department at Bryanston School. He went straight from school into war service with the Royal Engineers, where he designed camouflage and decoys, including bogus tanks. He also regularly exhibited his landscape paintings and, at the end of the war, enrolled at the Architectural Association School, London. There he won the SADG Medal, awarded for the best student of the session.

“Beak” was an incredibly gifted architect, involved in major projects for the Hertfordshire County Architect’s Department engaged on the Hertfordshire Experiment, the now celebrated programme to design new primary schools, before moving to the LCC Architects Department, with Robert Matthew, in London, in 1950.

In 1955 he went into private practice with Gordon and Eleanor Michel, where his first major building was Bute House Preparatory School for Girls, Hammersmith (1956). In 1961 he formed his own practice, B L Adams Architects, initially with offices in Kensington Church Street above the newly-opened Biba. Much of his later work was subcontracted by local authorities, and included sheltered housing projects, schools and libraries. The firm won a number of Civic Trust and other design awards.

In 1970 he amalgamated his firm with Green Lloyd and Son to form Green Lloyd Adams. During the 1970s he increasingly specialised in interiors for shops and public buildings, including the ‘ace café’ (now sadly lost) at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Davidoff Cigars shop on the corner of St. James’s and Jermyn Street. His final design work was 10 Aldersgate in the City of London. He retired from architectural practice in 1987.

He continued painting throughout his career, exhibiting regularly in The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. After his retirement he was still a regular exhibitor, with a national reputation as a sensitive draughtsman and masterful watercolourist.