James Wells Champney

The untimely death of James Wells Champney was a peculiar shock to the Century, of which he was one of the most interested and zealous artist members, contributing with regularity to its exhibitions and joining heartily in all its activities. Of New England birth and a wood engraver in his youth, after service in a Massachusetts regiment in the Civil War, he began his serious art education with Edward Frère, in Paris, in 1866. After further study at Antwerp, he opened a studio at Boston, coming to this city in the early seventies. About twenty years ago he took up the serious study and practice of pastels, in which, both in portraiture and in genre, as well as in copying of the famous works of European galleries, he attained marked success. He had an ardent and sincere love for his art, though he was wont whimsically to say that it was a mistress to whom a family man could not properly be exclusively devoted. The remark hardly did justice to the spirit in which actually he took his work, to his refined sense of beauty, his fidelity to his ideals, and his unflagging joyousness in the pursuit of them. In club life his bright, kindly, sympathetic companionship is sorely missed.

Edward Cary
1904 Century Association Yearbook