Benjamin Champney
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Benjamin Champney (November 17, 1817 – December 11, 1907) is synonymous with White Mountain art of the 19th century. He began his training as a lithographer under Pendleton in Boston. Most art historians consider him the founder of the "White Mountain School" of painters who came to North Conway, New Hampshire and the surrounding area during the second half of the 19th century. His paintings were often used to make chromolithographs that were subsequently sold to tourists who could not afford Champney's originals. He exhibited regularly at the Boston Athenæum and was a founder of the Boston Art Club.
Benjamin Champney was born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. He would visit Conway in 1838. In 1841, Champney went to France to study. In 1854, he went on a painting trip to Germany and Switzerland with John Frederick Kensett. Champney returned to Boston in 1846, and then returned to Europe almost at once to paint a panorama of the Rhine River. He returned to Boston in 1848 and exhibited the panorama there in December. It was subsequently exhibited in Worcester, Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecticut, and New York City. The panorama was destroyed by fire in New York City in October of 1857.
In 1850, Champney returned to the White Mountains with his friend, Kensett. Their enthusiasm and paintings drew large numbers of Boston and New York artists to the Conway area. In 1853, Champney married and bought a house between Conway and North Conway. It would be his summer home for over fifty years. His studio was a noted social center, and was visited by many people from all parts of the country.
On August 4, 1888, The White Mountain Echo reported: "Champney's studio is as much visited as ever this summer, and there are many new pictures to see. Of the landscapes, there is a view from the new carriage road up Humphrey's Ledge that is beautiful, and another a scene in Crawford Notch, and still another, a picture of Mount Chocorua from Tamworth; there are some lovely new flower pieces.... But perhaps the very prettiest is the old-fashioned pitcher in the kitchen window...."
In 1855, Champney was a founder of the Boston Art Club, and its president in 1856. In 1900, he published an autobiography, Sixty Years' Memories of Art and Artists.
Champney died in Woburn, Massachusetts in 1907.
[edit] References
- Beauty Caught and Kept: Benjamin Champney in the White Mountains. Historical New Hampshire, Vol. 51, Nos. 3&4, Fall/Winter 1996.
- Campbell, Catherine H. New Hampshire Scenery, Canaan, NH: Phoenix Publishing, 1985.
- Champney, Benjamin. Sixty Years' Memories of Art and Artists, Woburn, MA: Wallace & Andrews, 1900.
