Bobby Neel Adams was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina and was a resident of New York. In early 2014, Adams left New York and moved to the Arizona-Mexico border, where he no longer has an elevated train outside his building. During the 2007 MacDowell Centennial, Adams received a Peterborough Project Grant and produced his series FamilyTree with the residents of Peterborough, NH. Adams has exhibited internationally and his photographs are in the collections of: International Center for Photography, NY; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; Station Museum; diRosa Foundation; and the Norton Family Foundation. He has also received grants and awards from the Aaron Siskind Foundation, the LEF Foundation, MacDowell and the Hermitage. His book Broken Wings documents the world’s landmine problem and was exhibited and published by the Greenville Museum in 1997. Adams is currently working on a series of vanitas-style photographs titled DROWNED.
In December of 2015, Blue Sky Books – an arm of Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR – published a 76-page catalog of Bobby Neel Adams photosurgery work titled, FamilyTree, AgeMaps, and Couples. The FamilyTree series was executed during a two-month residency at MacDowell and partially funded with a Peterborough Project Grant during the 2007 Centennial.
