Elaine Adams
Executive Director

 

Elaine Adams combines her extensive background in art history, executive administration and business to provide a unique and personal approach to initiating community-oriented arts education programs and supporting the arts and fine artists.  For more than sixteen years she has been immersed in the contemporary-traditional fine art scene, and has been involved in various capacities in the art industry.  Today, she is recognized as one of the country’s most dynamic and influential forces in the growing shift away from conceptual art and back to representational, figurative formats.

Adams has served on several art committees and cultural boards, including Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s American Art Council, Pacific Asia Museum, Art Center College of Design, The Pasadena Symphony, Rymann-Carroll Foundation, and the American Society of Portrait Artists.  In 2007 she worked with the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, organizers (or “presenters”) of the world-renowned Rose Parade, to help develop Roses on Parade, a public art program to benefit children’s art education.

Since 1993, as a non-paid administrator, Adams has held the positions of Executive Director of the California Art Club, est. 1909, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that supports an ongoing dialogue between artists and the public.  In this capacity she has helped foster partnering associations with art scholars and institutions worldwide, including, Academy of Art University, Autry National Center, The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, Carnegie Art Museum, Florence Art Academy, Forbes Magazine Gallery, The Getty, The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, The Irvine Museum, Los Angeles Opera, and the Pasadena Museum of California Art.  Adams has also served as a volunteer as Editor-in-Chief of the California Art Club Newsletter and is a published author and lecturer on topics relating to traditional fine art and art history. 

In November 1997, Southwest Art Magazine named Adams one of the country’s “Five Most Notable Women.” Other honors include the Pasadena Arts Council’s Gold Crown Special Award in 2000 for her contributions in advancing contemporary-traditional art, and the Autry National Center’s John J. Geraghty Award in 2007, which she received with her husband, artist Peter Adams, for advancement of traditional fine art in the American West.

Prior to her work in the art world, Adams studied at the University of Southern California where she received dual bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and economics.  After graduation, she worked as a financial advisor for Crowell, Weedon & Co., the largest independent investment firm in the Western United States.