A solo exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of this world-class, Toledo artist’s work from the Grant family private collection
20 North Gallery presents Adam Grant Centennial, celebrating 100 years of museum-collected artist, Holocaust survivor and late Toledoan Adam Grant. The exhibition comprises works on paper from Grant’s Renewed Hope series created while the artist was in a displaced persons camp following World War II and large-scale canvases from Grant’s Figure and Circus series, featuring paintings from the Grant family’s private collection—many available for purchase for the first time. In Adam Grant Centennial, 20 North Gallery presents a rare look at this world-class artist’s thoughtful themes and developing styles throughout his lifetime. Viewers will enjoy a fascinating look into the life, artwork and international exhibition history of the artist.
See what WTOL11 had to say about “Adam Grant Centennial” on January 20, 2024:
Adam Grant, working on the ink on paper artwork, “Serenade, Renewed Hope Series” while in a displaced persons camp
As a teen, Adam (Grochowski) Grant was sent to the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Mauthausen, where he used his artistic abilities both to survive and to defy his captors by preserving in hidden artwork the identities of fellow prisoners. Following the liberation of the camps, Adam continued to paint—this time to process his harrowing experience, as well as to capture the renewed sense of hope he began to feel as he built his new life.
Adam emigrated to the United States, became a naturalized citizen and Americanized his name. In the U.S., Adam began working for the Detroit-based Palmer Paint Company, as one of the very first designers for the now-legendary Paint By Number kits. He soon moved to Toledo, Ohio, where he pursued a career as an exhibiting artist—showing his large-scale paintings in galleries and museums including the Toledo Museum of Art. Adam’s work has since been exhibited worldwide and has been accepted into the permanent collections of museums such as the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.
The exhibit continues through March 23, 2024.
A printed exhibition catalogue is available for purchase at $20 each.
Comprising 40 full-color pages, the catalogue contains a full annotated biography of the artist, images of exhibited artwork, never-before-seen reference photographs and documentation of prevailing themes in Grant’s artwork.
Advance orders may be placed by emailing 20 North Gallery at info@20northgallery.com.
As the Adam Grant Art Estate representative, 20 North Gallery is proud to celebrate the historic legacy of globally-collected Toledo artist Adam Grant, marking the centennial of his birth in 2024. An artist and Holocaust documenter, Grant was a brilliant individual, a gifted painter and a very brave man, going on to pursue a lifelong career in the arts, through his fine art work and his “day job” as the principal designer for Paint By Number. While Adam created the universally recognizable design archetype that guided Paint by Number to immense popularity, both here and abroad, his ubiquitous influence on midcentury American aesthetic is often underestimated—this exhibit demonstrates his indelible impact within American figure painting.
Adam Grant (b. 1924; Warsaw, Poland – d. 1992; Toledo, Ohio)
Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1924, Adam Grochowski was discouraged by his family from pursuing a professional art career. In his teens, Adam was sent to the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Mauthausen, where he traded his art for bread, enabling him to survive.
“Artist and Model III” oil on canvas by Adam Grant
After the liberation, Adam spent 5 years in a refugee camp. He emigrated to the United Sates in 1950, securing a job with the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit (Michigan), that had begun to produce the now-legendary Paint By Number kits. There, Adam met fellow designer and future wife, Margaret “Peggy” Brennan. Americanizing his name, the new Mr. and Mrs. Grant moved to Toledo (Ohio), where Peggy managed his fine art career and Adam painted until his death in 1992.
During his lifetime, Grant’s fine art was widely exhibited in galleries and museums, as well as juried and solo exhibits throughout the world, frequently garnering prestigious awards, including the American Painters in Paris Exhibit; Columbus Museum of Art’s (Ohio) Best of Show, numerous top honors in the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition and the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio) Roulet Medal. He was the featured painter in the January 1973 edition of American Artist. Later, his widow, the late Peggy Grant, as the executrix of his artistic estate, organized and facilitated exhibits of his work in Ohio, Indiana, Poland and Saudi Arabia.
Adam Grant in his studio
Grant’s work is part of numerous prestigious private, corporate and public collections, including The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida; Collegium Maius Museum-Krakow, Poland; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, Indiana; Bowling Green State University, Ohio; Monroe Community College, Michigan; The University of Toledo; Toledo Federation of Art Societies; the Polish Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Auschwitz Museum, Poland. In 2011, Grant’s work was accepted as a part of the permanent collection at the inauguration of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, forming the symbolic return of Adam Grochowski-Grant to his native city. 20 North Gallery is honored to have been selected by Mrs. Grant to serve as the estate representatives for Adam Grant’s artistic legacy.
