Clifford Addams

Clifford Isaac Addams (May 25, 1876 – November 7, 1942) was an American painter and etcher, and a protégé of James McNeill Whistler. Biography Addams was born in Woodbury, New Jersey, the son of Quaker wool merchant Wellington Isaac Addams and Sarah Neff Addams. He had an older brother Robert and a younger sister Florence. Addams studied architecture at the Drexel Institute, then attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He won an 1899 traveling scholarship from PAFA, which enabled him to study in Europe. The prior year, Whistler opened an art school in Paris—the Académie Carmen, operated by the artist's former model, Carmen Rossi. Addams enrolled, and became a favored pupil of the celebrated artist. Addams met fellow student Inez Eleanor Bate, and they married in London on June 27, 1900. They helped to run the school and care for Whistler, who was in failing health. After the school closed its doors in 1901, the couple settled in London. They had four children: Dianne (b. 1901) – Whistler was her godfather, twins James and Anthony (b. 1904), and Martin (b. ). Addams painted portraits and figure works, and made etchings of London and other European cities. He served in the Royal Navy from 1914 to 1919, during World War I. In 1920, he separated from his wife and family, citing her "extreme cruelty" in divorce proceedings. He returned to the United States, while she raised their children in Hendon, London. He settled in the Greenwich Village section of Lower Manhattan, where he died in 1942.