Lily Osman Adams was born in Toronto in 1865.[1] She studied privately under Farquhar McGillivray Knowles (1859–1932) and Lucius Richard (1832–1899). She attended the Toronto Art School where she was taught by John William Beatty (1869–1941). In New York she studied at Columbia University and the Arts Students League of New York under Arthur Wesley Dow and John F. Carlson She also studied at the University of Toronto, St John’s Wood Art, and the Ontario School of Art. In later years she studied at the Newlyn School of Art in England, under Stanhope Forbes and under L. Birge Harrison at Woodstock, New York.
Adams mostly used pastel and watercolour and occasionally oil. Subject matter mainly consisted of llandscapes, florals and still life.
In 1896 the Woman's Art Association of Canada (WAAC) commissioned a Canadian State Dinner Service to be painted on china by members of the association. The artists included Lily Osman Adams, Alice Egan (1872–1972) and Phoebe Amelia Watson (1858–1947). Adams painted eighteen plates with underwater designs as part of the service.
Adams exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts from 1904 to 1936. Her work was shown at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1907, and at the Ontario Society of Artists from 1903 to 1920. In 1924 she had a joint exhibition with Minnie Kallmeyer for which Saturday Night gave her work a favourable review. She held annual exhibitions at her studio on Irwin Street in Toronto during the 1930s.
Lily Osman Adams died in Toronto in 1945. One of her pastel studies of trilliums is held by the Art Gallery of Ontario.