author
L. Adam
Forced to flee Nazi Germany, this lawyer-turned-anthropologist built a remarkable second career studying Indigenous and so-called "primitive" art. His books helped bring non-European art traditions to a wider English-speaking audience.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Berlin in 1891, Leonhard Adam trained in law but was drawn early to ethnology and the study of material culture. After leaving Nazi Germany in 1938, he lived in Britain and then, after internment and transport to Australia during World War II, rebuilt his academic life there.
In Australia he became associated with the University of Melbourne, where he taught and researched anthropology and art. He is especially remembered for writing Primitive Art, a widely read introduction that reflected his lifelong interest in the artistic traditions of Indigenous peoples and other non-European cultures.
Adam died in Bonn in 1960. His career crossed law, anthropology, and art history, and his work remains a window into how twentieth-century scholars tried to understand and present the arts of many cultures to general readers.