Robert Adam is perhaps best known for his designs for architecture and interiors. His landscape studies are a comparatively lesser known aspect of his work, drawn by Adam not for exhibition or for patrons but for relaxation during his leisure hours. These personal sketches feature magnificent castles perched on high rocks, winding roads and towering waterfalls.
The buildings and topography often take as their reference points the landscape and architecture of Adam's native Scotland, but are mostly entirely imagined. The overall sense of these carefully composed picturesque landscapes is one of "great spirit, beauty and effect".
This exhibition will include more than 30 landscape watercolour and pen drawings by Robert Adam and by his sketching partners Paul Sandby and John Clerk of Eldin.
