Andy Adamos (1936-1991) Hadjiadamos, was born in Ktima, Paphos, Cyprus on June 18, 1936. He was the firstborn son of Yiorgos Hadjiadamos from Lefkara and Koulla Papaioannou from Paphos. Lia and Maro were the younger daughters of the family of five. His father was a schoolteacher appointed at the Primary School of Geroskipou which Andy attended as a child. During his school years, the Hadjiadamos family resided in Geroskipou. But when the time had come for Andy to enroll at the Greek High School of Paphos, he moved to Ktima, into the house of his uncle Sophocles and aunt Evgena, his mother’s sister. He lived there until he finished high school. “Aunt Evgena and Uncle Sophocles didn’t have children of their own, so they adored Andy like a son.
As soon as he graduated from the Greek High School of Paphos, he enrolled at the American Academy of Nicosia where he attended classes on commerce for two years. In 1955 the entire Hadjiadamos family emigrated to South Africa and took up residence in the city of Durban, in the province of Natal. There Andy studied graphic and commercial arts for two years at the Technical College of Durban. One of his professors was Henry Moore’s fellow student at the Royal College of Art in London, Mary Stainbank, who “encouraged his love of sculpture.”
He then moved to Pietermaritzburg, another city in the province of Natal, where, despite his father’s wishes to study architecture, he entered the Fine Arts Department of the University of Natal majoring in sculpture. As Andy himself admits, the influence of his professor, sculptor John Hooper – he too was an alumnus of the Royal College of Art in London, and a student of Jacob Epstein – was remarkable: “He swept us off our feet – we all followed him into the Sculpture Department. His percept was that no sculptor could amount to anything if he didn’t know his material and his tools. This was the greatest thing he taught us. […] We experimented – we worked in wood, plaster, clay – all materials.”
When he graduated from the University of Natal, he worked for about a year as a part-time lecturer at the university’s Department of Sculpture before leaving for Greece. In 1964 he was hired by the Archaeological Museum of Olympia as a restorer of antiquities.
From 1965 until 1970 he worked as an art professor at the Public Commercial Professional School of Morphou. Jenny also came to Cyprus in 1966 and the following year they were married.
Later that same year they moved yet again, this time to Pietermaritzburg; Andy entered the postgraduate program of studies in sculpture of the University of Natal, and he also held his first individual exhibition at the Jack Heath Gallery. Although postgraduate studies in sculpture at the University of Natal normally lasted for two years, he interrupted his studies after the first year due to a disagreement with his supervising professor.
In spite of everything he did not lose his courage, and immediately after that he settled down with his wife in Durban where he was appointed director of the Department of Sculpture of the Natal Technikon from 1970 until 1972.
Andy talks of what was an agreeable period: “I enjoyed this – it gave me a chance to work at my sculpture.” Jenny Adamos recalls that at the time “he was particularly creative. He worked at his studio, he held a solo exhibition, he participated in group exhibitions, but he remained restless for Cyprus.So in 1972 we came back, we went to live in Famagusta, and there we had our first child, Yiorgos.”
In Famagusta, the Adamos family lived in a house by the sea, while Andy set up his studio at the Ai Yiannis area where he gave sculpture lessons. “[...] a group of eight girls [...] met twice a week for two hours. Andy usually brought them a model and they worked with clay, wood, and stone. As a model, he brought an elderly man with apparent wrinkles who would sit on a rotating wooden wheel.”
In parallel to teaching sculpture at his school in Famagusta, from 1973 until 1974 he participated in international exhibitions representing Cyprus in Brazil, Hungary, and Egypt. Unfortunately, the calm family life and flourishing artistic career of Andy Adamos were violently interrupted by the Turkish invasion.
Andy moved back to South Africa, as a refugee this time and rebuild his life. In 1980, he managed to return to Cyprus where he established his studio once again. For a decade Andy exhibited, wrote, and established a family restaurant. He was honored twice, firstly in 1982 with the first prize of literature with his first book Sknypoyiak,(he published three books) and in 1986 he won the first prize at the Cairo Biennale with his sculpture Female Figure. (National Gallery of Cyprus).
Andy passed away on the 29 of November 1990 in Paphos.
Check out his Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/AndysHadjiAdamos
