Derrick Adams was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1970. He received his MFA from Columbia University and BFA from Pratt Institute. He is an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation’s Studio Program. Adams is a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (2019), a Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2018), a Studio Museum Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize (2016), and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2009). Adams has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including Buoyant (2020) at the Hudson River Museum; Where I’m from (2019) at The Gallery in Baltimore City Hall; Sanctuary (2018) at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Transmission (2018) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Network (2017) at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; and The Channel (2012) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Adams’ work has been presented in important public exhibitions, including Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth. (2019) a 10-city exhibition presented by the Smithsonian Institution; PERFORMA (2015, 2013, and 2005); The Shadows Took Shape (2014) and Radical Presence (2013–14) at The Studio Museum in Harlem; Greater New York (2005) at MoMA PS1; and Open House: Working In Brooklyn (2004) at the Brooklyn Museum. His work resides in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
