Born in Antwerp in 1577, Adam Willaerts began his long career as a painter depicting historical sea battles, harbour scenes and fantastic shipwrecks, much in the style of Hendrik Vroom. In these early works he devotes much care to detail, particularly in his drawing of the ships. His shipwrecks are often very dramatic in mood and always contain rocky coastlines and turbulent seas.

These early paintings are often quite large and it is not until later in his career that he began working on smaller compositions. Willaerts' choice of subject-matter also changed and he started to concentrate more on painting beach scenes. The pictures generally depict high cliffs rising at either side, surmounted by ancient castles. The brightly coloured fishermen and seamen gathered around the shore are reminiscent of figures found in compositions by Jan Brueghel the Elder or Josse de Momper. He was much influenced by 'Velvet' Brueghel in his formative years. The Utrecht painter, Willem Ormea, often contributed large still-lives of fish to the foreground of these beach scenes.

Willaerts is thought to have travelled at some stage as occasional depictions of harbour scenes in Norway as well as the Dutch Colonies, usually with Dutch frigates lying at anchor, are known to exist.

In 1600 the artist moved from Antwerp to the Dutch town of Utrecht, where his son, Abraham, was born in 1603. Abraham Willaerts was the pupil of Jan Bylert and although he mainly painted seascapes, he was also recognised as a portraitist. As with his father's compositions, Abraham Willaerts' marine subjects follow closely the Flemish tradition. Owing to their strong similarities in style and an almost identical monogram, it is, on occasion, very difficult to distinguish apart the work of father and son.

In 1611, Adam Willaerts became a member of the Guild of Utrecht and from 1620 was appointed Dean several times. He died in Utrecht in 1664.

Museums where examples of the artist's work can be found include:
Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dresden, Frankfurt, Geneva, Haarlem, Hamburg, Leningrad (The Hermitage), Greenwich (National Maritime Museum), Madrid, New York (Metropolitan Museum), Rotterdam, Stockholm, Utrecht and Vienna.