Adam donated photographs of the Batak people and other Sumatran ethnic groups, as well as notes on central Javanese dance to the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam in August 1944.
He learned the Batak language and wrote a book on Malay-Batak grammar in 1948 with James Butler.
He had three children in Sumatra, Lilo, Claus and Inge, and did portraiture and filmed and photographed royal dances and rituals with the permission of Sultan Hamengku Buwono VIII.
[1] Other events he documented include the circumcision of a royal prince of the Susunahan of Solo, Indonesia.
He lectured, and sold pictures and films to German language magazines while visiting Salzburg, Vienna, the Netherlands and New York City, where Adam worked as associate curator of oriental art from 1929 to 1933 at the Brooklyn Museum.