Growing up as an only child in Plainfield, New Jersey, Alonzo Adams spent a lot of time by himself. A rare condition required him to have two nose surgeries, further isolating him from other kids. But he found a friend in drawing.
By fifth grade, he said, he realized he had “a God-given talent.” Years later, he went to Rutgers University to study engineering to fulfill his mother’s wishes for him. But when the consistently solid student failed calculus, “I knew engineering wasn’t for me,” Adams said.
About that time, he came across the art of Charles White, a Black artist whose work centered on poignant images of Black life, and Adams’ purpose — and career path — changed. As a freshman, he showed a professor his first oil painting, called “The Start,” which depicted a runner set to take off on a race. The professor was so impressed he visited Adams’ home to convince his mother to allow her son to change his major.
“It was like a college coach coming into an athlete’s living room to recruit a player,” Adams said.
His mother acquiesced, and “The Start” turned out to be a symbol for the launch of his career. Adams, who earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, exploded out of the blocks and is now one of the country’s pre-eminent artists who captures Black culture.
“I dreamed of doing great work, so it’s amazing to live out your dreams,” he said.
Adams, 62, actually is living a fantasy. Famous people are drawn to his work. Collectors of his art are a who’s who of sports and entertainment: Among them are pro basketball Hall of Famers Alonzo Mourning, Ray Allen, Dwyane Wade, Patrick Ewing and Dikembe Mutombo, current NBA stars Chris Paul and Bam Adebayo, actor Wesley Snipes, NFL Hall of Famer and television host Michael Strahan, actress Jasmine Guy and comedian Tracy Morgan. Hollywood star Eddie Murphy, singer Patti LaBelle and former U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young also own Adams’ early work.
“His work captures the essence of Black life,” said Mourning, who first saw Adams’ display at the 1997 NBA All-Star Weekend in Cleveland. “I just froze and stared at all of it. I ended up buying five pieces, putting them in my house. And over the years I have seen a uniqueness in the character of his work. Given the opportunity and the visibility, he could become the premier ethnic artist in the country.”
Heritage Fine Arts describes Adams’ work as “dominated by the earth tones favored by Rembrandt and the American artists he admires, giving his work a poetic, pensive quality.”
“It’s extremely flattering that celebrities — or anyone — support my work,” said Adams, who ran track in high school and is an avid golfer. “Usually, my collectors have seen my work on their friends’ or colleagues’ walls and asked about me. I don’t want to sell my art. I want my art to sell itself.”
And so it has.
Mourning is the No. 1 collector of Adams’ work. Guy, who starred in the legendary television series “A Different World,” has been an Adams collector for years and hosted multiple events featuring his work.
Guy sat for a portrait many years ago and was captured by the detail in the finished product. “And the pose he used was not a pose. It was just me looking out the window, thinking,” she said. “It was a brilliant choice by a brilliant artist.”
Adams’ connection to celebrities does not end there. While working on commission as an appliance salesman, he saved a woman hundreds of dollars on equipment and warranties she did not need. He said she reminded him of his mother “and I just couldn’t let her leave knowing she was wasting money.” About six months later, the woman took the first-ever newspaper article about Adams as an artist to the set of “The Cosby Show,” where her son had scored a job as an extra.
The son shared the article with the show’s star, Bill Cosby, who then purchased one of Adams’ watercolor pieces sight unseen. Adams said Cosby later called him and urged him to apply to a master’s program to refine his skills even further. “You apply to any art school in the world, get in on your own merits — don’t mention me — and I will pay for it,” he recalls Cosby saying.
Adams was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania, and Cosby paid for his tuition as well as an apartment and a stipend.
“I know there’s controversy around Bill Cosby, but he changed my life,” Adams said.
The late poet Maya Angelou had an impact on him, too. She appreciated Adams’ work and hosted a showing for him at Howard University and a dinner in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. At the latter event, he recalled saying, “‘Dr. Angelou, I’m searching for that artistic voice.’ And she said, ‘Young Mr. Adams, you have to go out to the world, soak it up like a sponge, bring it back to your studio and bring it out.’ Those words stuck with me.”
But how did they influence his work? “I started traveling with my camera and began photographing everything that moved me,” he said. “I started writing stuff down in a book. Her words made me see better.”
A trip to Ghana in 2019, many years after he received Angelou’s advice, inspired him, too. He visited the so-called slave dungeons in Cape Coast, where enslaved Africans were held captive before being herded onto ships bound for the Middle Passage.
“I literally started vomiting when I came out of the male dungeon,” Adams said. “Whenever I think I can’t do something, I always think back to that experience. I asked the tour guide, ‘How did they survive?’ And he simply said, ‘They lived so that you can live.’ It made me understand that I have so many things I want to say in my work.”
He is proudly working on a 15-foot by 60-foot mural in his beloved hometown of Plainfield. And Adams has worked alongside his son Kyle Olani Adams, 23, also an accomplished artist. They teamed up for the exhibit “Pivot” last November at Detour Gallery in New York. “A lot of people say, ‘He’s better than you with charcoal,’ and I say, ‘You’re damned right. And I’m proud of him.’ What I love most about Kyle is that he has a desire to be great. He’s driven. He’s going to be that guy.”
Kyle Olani, poised and unassuming, said his older brother Jaylen inherited their father’s boisterous personality “and I guess I got the artist side.” It wasn’t until high school, though, that he “took art seriously.” Now, after creating consistently during the Covid pandemic, he’s on an upward trajectory.
“I see the potential for greatness in Kyle,” said Mourning, who has bought his work and placed one of his pieces in the lobby of his recently opened Overtown Youth Center in Miami. “All he has to do is remain disciplined, diligent and hungry, and good things are going to happen for him — like it did for his dad.”
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