John Ottis Adams Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

John Ottis Adams spent his childhood in Franklin, Shelbyville, and Martinsville, Indiana and went to Wabash College for two years.

He got his formal training at the South Kensington School of Art in London for two years and put in seven years in Germany, where he went to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

A standard piece of his preparation and a regular exercise for most art understudies in London was to do oil painting reproductions of the famous artists at the National Gallery. The experience exposed John Ottis Adams to the work of scene painters John Constable and J. M. W. Turner.

He settled in Muncie in 1876 and opened a studio there in 1887 subsequent to putting in seven years doing further studies in Munich with T. C. Steele and different individuals from the Hoosier Group. Adams was the focal figure in the development of an art school in Muncie, Indiana, where he later took part in shaping the Art Students League of Muncie after the Muncie Art School shut down.

John Ottis Adams later (with different artists from the Hoosier Group) established the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis. He and his wife, Winifred Brady Adams, likewise a painter, lived and painted at The Hermitage in Brookville, Indiana alongside T. C. Steele and his wife.

Along with fellow artist William Forsyth, Adams taught American impressionists artists, Francis Focer Brown and Dorothy Morlan.

Art Movement History: Impressionism Art.
Artists Influencing John Ottis Adams: Theodore Clement Steele.
He Traveled To England, Germany.
Painters John Ottis Adams Influenced: Francis Focer Brown, Dorothy Morlan.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.