A new animated film, The Addams Family, premiered last week. The new film is the first 3D computer-animated rendering of Mr. Addams’ characters, and its release inspired a look at his career. The movie paid tribute to the creative genius of Charles Addams, who conceived the Addams family characters in the original The Addams Family cartoon. The artist, born and raised in Westfield, New Jersey, attended the University of Pennsylvania 1930-1931, after transferring from Colgate University because he wanted to take art courses. His curriculum turned out to be first-year architecture instead of art, so the following year he attended the Grand Central School of Art in New York City (Almanac November 8, 1979). Despite the short stint, he left a lasting legacy in the fine arts community at Penn, as well as in the entertainment industry and American culture as a whole. Mr. Addams is known for his fantastical cartoons that possess a ghoulish, haunting quality. He sold his first sketch to The New Yorker in 1932, and his work continued to appear in the publication for which he freelanced for a span of more than 50 years (Almanac May 8, 1980). His development of the Addams Family comic contributed to the basis of The Addams Family television series, which premiered in 1964 on ABC and ran for two years, and the three live-actions films that followed. The Addams Family, Addams Family Values and Addams Family Reunion have since become American favorites.  Mr. Addams’ work has been exhibited at the Fogg Art Museum, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Almanac May 8, 1980). His prominent cartoon collections include Drawn and Quartered (1942), Addams and Evil (1947), Monster Rally (1950), Homebodies (1954), Nightcrawlers (1957), Dear Dead Days (1959), Black Maria (1960), The Charles Addams Mother Goose (1967), My Crowd (1970), Chas. Addams Favorite Haunts (1976), and Creature Comforts (1981). Many of Mr. Addams’ works have been published as books.

In 1980, Mr. Addams received an honorary Doctor in Fine Arts degree from Penn. He was “richly deserving of recognition for the finite time he did here at Pennsylvania in the thirties and the infinite pleasure he has given to generations of monster-lovers ever since, this noted—if not notorious—member of the University Family is now slated to receive from their hand the honorary degree” (Almanac May 22, 1980).

The “Addams Family mansion” in particular was thought by many to be inspired by the intricate architecture of Penn’s College Hall. The iconic building embodied the “cobwebby, gloomy Victorian structure inhabited by a vampire” (Almanac May 8, 1980).

When Mr. Addams died in 1988 at the age of 76, his ashes were buried, per his instructions, in “The Swamp,” the pet cemetery on his estate. 

In his memory, the Lady Colyton (Barbara Estella Barb), Mr. Addams’ ex-wife, endowed the Charles Addams Memorial Prize, which awards $10,000 annually to a graduating MFA student for the promise of outstanding talent and achievement as an artist. 

In 1995, Lady Colyton announced a gift to create the Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall as a space for the fine arts community at the University. Penn President Emerita Judith Rodin described the gift as a “tribute to the artist whose Gothic characters played out their dramas to the endless delight of us all.” Donations for the building also came from 1970 graduates Fern Karesh Hurst and Barbara and Harvey Kroiz, among others (Almanac April 3, 2001). The state-of-the-art building opened in 2001 with an exhibition that included several of Charles Addams’ original New Yorker cartoons given to Penn. Linking the campus to the building are The Kelly Family Gates—bronze gates with sculptural hands designed by Mark Lueders, MFA’93, who won a juried competition and was inspired by Mr. Addams’ “Thing” character. The hands were molded from Penn fine arts students, staff and faculty (Almanac May 13, 2003).

The reappearance of Mr. Addams’ work on the big screen honors the prominence of his artistic career. Decades after his conception of the Addams Family, Mr. Addams continues to please audiences with his macabre creations. His art never ceases to inspire new works in the world of entertainment.

Mr. Addams was a distant relation (despite the spelling difference of their last names) to presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams and a cousin of social reformer Jane Addams. John Adams of Massachusetts and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania crossed paths during the early days of the republic. The first time they met was at the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774. Both were supporters of independence and they worked together in Paris to obtain French support for the American cause.