Katharine Adams

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Katharine Adams
Born(1862-11-25)25 November 1862
Berkshire, England
Died15 October 1952(1952-10-15) (aged 89)
Gloucestershire, England
NationalityBritish
Known forBookbinding

Katharine Adams (25 November 1862 – 15 October 1952) was a British bookbinder famous for her detailed leather bindings.

Biography[]

Adams was born in Bracknell, a town in Berkshire, England, to Catherine Mary Horton (d. 1912) and Reverend William Fulford Adams (d. 1912).[1] Her childhood friends included Jenny and May Morris, daughters of the artist William Morris.[1] Adams trained briefly as a bookbinder with Sarah Prideaux and T. J. Cobden-Sanderson in London in 1897, then set up her own workshop in Lechlade.[1] In May 1898, she won first prize in amateur bookbinding at the Oxford arts and crafts exhibition.[1] In 1901, Adams established the Eadburgha Bindery in Gloucestershire, where she employed and trained two assistants, both women.[1] She soon received frequent commissions from the likes of Emery Walker and Sydney Cockerell. Two of her most important commissions were The Bindings of the British Museum presented to George V and a psalter presented to Queen Mary. Her patrons also included the Doves Press, the Ashendene Press, and the Kelmscott Press. In 1913, she married , and they moved to Otmoor near Islip in Oxfordshire before returning to Gloucestershire in the 1930s.[2]

Adams' bindings were intricate and usually featured fine, pictorial gold details on leather, made using tools she made herself (now held by the British Library). She was largely self-taught.[3] She exhibited frequently throughout Europe as well as North America and South Africa. She became the president of the in 1893 and, in 1938, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.[2]

She continued to bind until her death at her home, The Cherries, in Gloucestershire, on 15 October 1952. In her lifetime, she completed an estimated 300 bindings.[4]

Legacy[]

Adams' bindings are held by private collectors and collecting institutions alike. Her papers are held at:

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Sara Gray (2019). British Women Artists. A Biographical Dictionary of 1000 Women Artists in British Decorative Arts. Dark River. ISBN 978 1 911121 63 3.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Jane Griffiths (2004). Adams, Katharine (1862–1952) in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b "Katharine Adams correspondence: and other material, circa 1898-1960 (finding aid)". University of California Berkeley, Bancroft Library. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "Six Centuries of Master Bookmaking". Southern Methodist University, Bridwell Library. Archived from the original on 26 June 2013. Retrieved 26 April 2013.

Further reading[]

  • M. Tidcombe, Women bookbinders, 1880–1920 (1996)
  • J. R. Abbey, English bindings, 1490–1940, in the library of J. R. Abbey, ed. G. D. Hobson (privately printed, London, 1940)
  • R. H. Lewis, Fine bookbinding in the twentieth century (1984)
  • H. M. Nixon, Broxbourne library: styles and designs of bookbindings from the twelfth to the twentieth century (1956)
  • H. M. Nixon, Five centuries of English bookbinding (1978)
  • V. Meynell, ed., The best of friends: further letters to Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (1956)
  • S. Cockerell, The Times (20 Oct 1952)
  • S. Prideaux, Modern bookbindings: their design and decoration (1906)
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