Extension

Clinton Adams

This is the next to the last print Clinton Adams did, done between December 7, 1993 and April 6, 1994. He commented about it to cataloguer Robert Conway: "The title is a triple pun: First, I had previously done a print whhich I thought was very likely to be my last lithograph, and having entitled it 'Coda', I decided, well, this is something beyond that, so it's an extension. Second, the image, with a couple of Xs and the tension between them is an XtensionX, and, third, it is an extended horizontal image...This is the next to last print and the last black and white. I think it is one of the very good ones, beautifully printed. All of those pale delicate tones and those rich darks sometimes right next to one another was quite a trick...If you will notice the last fifteen to twenty years of my prints, they are either black and white crayon work or they are juxtipositions of colors."

Adams was born in Glendale, California on December 11, 1918. He earned a B.A. in education and a M.A. in 1942 from the University of California Los Angeles and began teaching there in 1946. He also taught at the Otis Art Institute and went on to head the art departments at both the University of Kentucky and the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Adams was introduced to printer Lynton Kistler in 1948 and began producing lithographs in his commercial print shop in Los Angeles. In 1959, he joined forces with artist June Wayne and the Tamarind Lithography Workshop was founded in Los Angeles in 1960 with Adams as associate director. He moved to Albuquerque in 1961 after accepting the position as dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico. Tamarind moved to Albuquerque in 1970 and Adams became the Institute's director—a position he held for fifteen years. Adams' work is held in permanent collections through the United States and abroad.