An autobiography, Mémoires à contre-vent, was published in French by Edition La Différence in April 2010,[4] previously issued in English as Not Drowning But Waving.
Adam was a close friend of the painters Prunella Clough and Keith Vaughan, and contributed much to work on both artists.
He was the author of the biography of the architect and designer Eileen Gray, published in England, USA, Germany, France, Japan and Russia.
In his final years he left Britain to live between Paris and the south of France, where he married his life partner, the actor Facundo Bo.
He made over 100 documentaries for BBC Current Affairs and for the Music and Arts Department, among them many prize-winning films: He made films on Hockney, Luchino Visconti, Edward Albee, Lillian Hellman,[5] Hans Werner Henze, Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes,[6] the German Cinema, and a ten-part series on Modern Architecture.