John Ottis Adams, Indiana (1851-1927), Brookville River

John Ottis Adams Indiana (1851-1927) Brookville River Landscape with Bridge and Homestead, 1897 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right. Conserved in 1987 by Linda Witkowski, Indianapolis Museum of Art. From AskArt: John Ottis Adams was best known as a nature-loving artist. A landscape painter who was a key member of the Hoosier Group of Indiana painters, Adams was, along with William Forsyth and Theodore Steele, committed to depicting his own native region. Typically their early work was peasant genre in dark tonalism, but in the 1890s, it became much lighter in the manner of the impressionists, and these artists were for many years the premier impressionist painters of the Midwest. Much of their subject matter was along the Muscatatuck and Whitewater Rivers and around the Indiana communities of Brookville and Vernon. Adams was born in Amitz, Indiana, and in the mid 1880s, went to Munich, Germany where he followed the regular routine of the Royal Academy. His companion there was Theodore Steele. Adams also studied with J. Frank Currier at Schleisheim, Germany and with John Parker in London. After studying in England and Germany, Adams returned to Indiana and opened an art school in Muncie, 1887. In Indiana, the "Hoosier Group's" first significant recognition came in December, 1894 with an exhibition in Lorado Taft's studio in the Chicago Athenaeum building. An excerpt from the catalog read: "These men were isolated from their fellow artists, they were surrounded by apparently the most unpromising material, yet they set themselves to their thankless task right manfully--and this exhibition demonstrates the power of the artist's eye to find floods of color, graceful forms, and interesting compositions everywhere." In 1896, Adams and Steele's had a two-man exhibition in Saint Louis, and in 1904, their work was in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. He was instrumental in the establishment of the John Herron Art Institute in 1901, and was an instructor of drawing and painting there until his retirement in 1906. He married Winifred Brady Adams in 1898. Adams divided his time among homes in Southern Indiana, Michigan, and Florida, accompanied many times by fellow artist and friend, Otto Stark. 21 1/2"H x 31 1/2"W (image), 28"H x 38"W (frame)