Titles

Roughly half of Adams’ paintings are titled on the back. Larger paintings are more likely to be titled than smaller ones. A few titles are in script, but most are in print, with centered dots between words, as in his usual signature. Some titles are somewhat poetic: “Where the Twilight Dwelleth” “October Gold” (Aspens or Cottonwoods) Most are simply descriptive and site-specific: “Mount Sopris in Evening Light” “Spanish Peaks in Spring” “Approaching evening near Denver Colo.”

Oil paintings are usually titled in pencil on the left side, or sometimes on the center, of the upper wooden stretcher bar, and these are often hard to see or read if the stretcher bar is browned with age (or covered with brown paper backing!) Examining the stretcher bar in bright sunlight at a steep, “raking” angle often makes it easier to see and read these titles, since the penciled title dents the surface of the wood.
Most Adams oil paintings are on canvas, but perhaps 10-15% of smaller paintings are painted on some kind of composition board, and one is on a beveled solid wooden panel from a door. Usually these paintings on board are untitled; a few have titles on the back of the panel.
One painting is titled on the front, lower right, “A.sketch.1907” and signed underneath.

Watercolor painting titles usually appear in pencil on the center back of the light cardboard upon which most watercolors are permanently mounted. Sometimes the title is enclosed in a box, and sometimes there is also what appears to be an inventory number inscribed inside a separate box, and sometimes other notations about price, payment or framing.