James Wells Champney

James Wells Champney, son of painter Benjamin Champney, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 16, 1843. After studying drawing at the Lowell Institute, Champney earned a living doing small wood engravings.

He resolved to be a professional artist and for two years he taught drawing at Dr. Dio Lewis' school in Lexington, Massachusetts.

In 1866 Champney studied with Edouard Frere at Ecouen, a village near Paris. In 1868 he studied with Van Lerius at the Royal Academy in Antwerp, Belgium, where he won first prize in drawing. In 1869 he went to Paris and sketched readers at the Biblioteque-Ste. Genevieve and art students at the Louvre. He spent a short time in Rome sketching street scenes and outlying villages. After a brief return to Boston, he was back in Europe in 1871. Paris was in the midst of the upheaval of the Commune, so Germany, victorious in the Franco-Prussian War, seemed the safer place for study and travel.

In 1873 Champney was chosen to accompany Edward King on a journey through the American South. King had been commissioned by the editors of Scribner's Monthly to write a series of articles in order to "present to the public, through the medium of a popular periodical, an account of the material resources, and the present social and political condition, of the people of the States formerly under the domination of Slavery," and "to give the reading public a truthful picture of life in a section of the country which has, since the close of a devastating war, been overwhelmed by a variety of misfortunes, but upon which the dawn of a better day is breaking." Each month a different part of the South was featured. Each article was accompanied by steel engravings of the people, landscape and buildings of the region.

Many of these were based on more than 500 sketches done by Champney on his 20,000 mile journey. Some of the sketches were re-drawn for publication by Thomas Moran. In 1874 the series appeared as a book, The Great South, and the next year a second edition was published in England...

In 1875 Champney exhibited at the Paris Salon. He returned to the United States with a commission from L'Illustration for figure drawings of American life. He also illustrated young people's books written by his wife.

Champney specialized in genre painting, so popular with the Victorians. He especially liked to do anecdotal scenes of the young and old. Some of his paintings, including Don's Touch, Helping Grandma, and Children Roasting Apples, were sold as color prints. He exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 and the next year became professor of art at Smith College in Massachusetts. In 1878 he traveled to Brazil to do sketches for a series of articles Herbert Smith was writing for Scribner's Monthly. When he returned, he directed art classes for the Hartford School of Decorative Arts.

Champney kept a studio at Deerfield, Massachusetts, complete with casts and a skeleton he used as models, and a hammock he used in his travels. It was his favorite place to work, but mostly he worked at his studio in New York City. Between 1880 and 1884 the Champneys made several trips to Europe. In 1890 they opened a studio in Paris. In 1884 Champney returned to the South, where he had first gained fame, and painted Train Derailment at Halifax, North Carolina. It is representative of his work in watercolors, which he used almost as much as oils. The next year he began working in pastels and did a pastel portrait of Henry M. Stanley, the man who "found" Dr. Livingstone. Champney exhibited pastels at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and in 1898 did decorations for the Hotel Manhattan.

Champney was elected an associate of the National Academy in 1882. Early in his career he signed his work "Champ" to distinguish him from other Boston artists named Champney. Later he generally signed them "J. Wells Champney." He was always "Wells" to his family. He was killed in an elevator accident in New York City on May 1, 1903.

THE SOUTH ON PAPER: LINE, COLOR AND LIGHT, Robert M. Hicklin Jr., Inc., Spartanburg, South Carolina, 1985, p. 29.

Copyright 1985 Robert M. Hicklin Jr., Inc.

Biography courtesy of The Charleston Renaissance Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/charleston


James Wells "Champ" Champney was a prolific artist whose work was of high quality and broad scope. He was very successful as an oil painter of genre scenes, and later was perhaps the foremost pastelist of his day. A lecturer, illustrator, watercolorist and photographer, he was also one of the first Americans to grasp and utilize the spirit of impressionism.

Champney was born in Boston in 1843. At Lowell Institute he studied drawing and took courses in anatomy under Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was apprenticed to a Boston wood-engraver at 16, but left in 1862 to serve in the Civil War. Discharged because of malaria, he taught drawing from 1864 to 1866 at Dr. Dio Lewis's Young Ladies' Seminary.

In 1866, Champney decided to become a professional artist and went to Europe to study. He left for London in October, then journeyed on to Ecouen, France a month later to be tutored by Edouard Frere. Champney spent 1868 in Antwerp studying under Van Lerius, and 1869 in Italy. That year he exhibited his first genre painting at the Paris Salon.

In 1870 he returned to Boston, where he opened a studio and continued to produce genre paintings, popular with the American public. These paintings quaintly depicted the young, as in "Teetering at the SawMill" (date and location unknown); the old, as in "Second Childhood" (date and location unknown) or the two together, as in "Helping Grandma" (date and location unknown).

In 1873, Champney was commissioned by Scribner's to illustrate "The Great South," a series of articles by Edward King. The two traveled more than 25,000 miles and Champney contributed at least 500 illustrations. Afterwards, Champney visited Europe, where he again exhibited at the Salon, and was commissioned by L'Illustration, the French magazine, to do figure drawings of American life. In 1876, Champney settled in Deerfield, Massachusetts and showed his paintings at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.

While teaching art at Smith College between 1877 and 1884, Champney began experimenting with pastels. His pastel "translations," or copies, of European masterpieces, as well as portraits of New York Society and theater personalities, boosted his artistic growth and popularity. In fact, to have one's portrait rendered in Champney's pastels was an affirmation of status.

The high point of his career was his exhibition at Knoedler's Gallery in 1897. He displayed 40 pastels, 12 comprising a series called "Types of American Girlhood." These large paintings bore such titles as "The Bicyclist", "The College Graduate" and "At the Golf Links".

Champney died in an elevator mishap while leaving the Camera Club in New York City in 1903. - Antiques and Fine Art