Anne MacAdam died in Provincetown on Feb. 25, 2022 after several months in hospice. Her death, at age 91, was confirmed by her daughter, Heather Dune Macadam.
Anne was born on May 23, 1930, in Wilmington, Del. to Christine and John Macadam. She grew up in Hockessin, Del., where she attended the local schools, graduating from high school in 1948.
Anne was passionate about art. Growing up with two brothers, she began exploring her artistic interests by drawing cars and comic strips. By the time she entered tenth grade, she knew she wanted to dedicate herself to art. After high school, she studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Later in life, Anne would become a landscape painter. Before that, however, she pursued a career in automotive design and industrial styling. After she married, she moved to Detroit in 1955 to start her career with Studebaker-Packard. One of her early assignments was to work on the innovative design of the 1956 Packard Predictor, Packard’s last independent luxury model — a “concept” car that was never mass produced. The only existing Predictor is in the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Ind.
In 1957 Anne moved to the Chrysler Corp., where, as design studio assistant head, she was instrumental in creating the 1960 Plymouth Valiant. Decades later, she helped design Chrysler’s first minivan. She subsequently became vice president of design before retiring from Chrysler in 1980, all while raising her two children.
She next worked as director of styling for NCR (at that time the National Cash Register Co.) before retiring to the Cape, drawn by the stark beauty of the landscape, which was so important to her in her second career.
In 1985, she designed and built her home in Provincetown and began painting landscapes. At first, she tended toward abstraction, but after 1991 she turned to acutely observed realism, recording the moods and colors of the landscape that she loved around Provincetown. She could often be seen with an easel, painting plein air on the shore of East Harbor (Pilgrim Lake). She was represented by gallerist Berta Walker.
She also became an active member of Provincetown’s Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, where she found a community of like-minded people and a spiritual home.
She served on the congregation’s board of directors and other boards and was involved in designing or overseeing several restoration projects, including the historic trompe l’oeil artwork which covers the walls and ceiling of the meeting house sanctuary, the fire escape, elevator, and library.
Anne was a founding member of the Meeting House Instrument Trust that led a multi-year campaign to acquire a Steinway concert grand piano and to fully restore the rare 1850 Holbrook tracker organ. She was a steadfast champion of the Great Music on Sundays @5 concert series organized by the Instrument Trust. She designed the performance stage, built the choir risers, and made a piano quilt that perfectly covers the Steinway.
Anne was fiercely independent and highly intelligent. Her passion for art and music was passed on to her surviving children — her son, Loch Ian Macadam of Rehoboth Beach, Del. and her daughter, Heather Dune Macadam of Hampton Bays, N.Y. — and her surviving brother, Bruce Ian Macadam — her favorite sculptor — of Columbus, Ohio.
A memorial service is planned for late May at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Meeting House, 236 Commercial St., Provincetown 02657 or to the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 460 Commercial St., Provincetown 02657.
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