Adele Williams was born in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Victoria (née Smith) and John H. Williams.[1][2] Graduating high school at the age of 15, she went to New York in 1886 to study at the Woman's Art School of Cooper Union and the Art Students' League.[1] She also studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, where she won the Prix Concours medal. She studied there with Jacques Blanche, Lucien Simon and Émile-René Ménard. She studied at the Julien Studio with Gabriel Ferrier and William-Adolphe Bouguereau.[2][3] Afterwards, she studied under Charles Webster Hawthorne in Provincetown, Massachusetts.[2]
Williams worked in oil, watercolor, pastel, and mezzotint, painting landscapes, still lifes, and harbor and street scenes in an Impressionist style. She exhibited work at the Paris Salon[3] during her stay in France, and after her return to the United States she showed at the American Watercolor Society, the Art Club of Philadelphia, and elsewhere.[1] A number of her portraits are cataloged by the Catalogue of American Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, including a 1902 self-portrait and a 1903 portrait of Ellen Axson Wilson, the first wife of President Woodrow Wilson.[4] Her portrait of judge John W. Riely hangs in the Virginia Supreme Court,[5] and her portrait of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury is owned by the University of Virginia.[6]
Williams lived on West Avenue in Richmond. She died on December 18, 1952, in Richmond. She was buried in Hollywood Cemetery.[2][7]
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