Ada Belle Champlin (1875-1950)

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Landscape painter Ada Belle Champlin was born in 1875, in St. Louis, Missouri. After living for some time in Chicago, Illinois, where she attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1886-1890, she moved to San Diego, California in 1910, then Pasadena, California in 1916, where she painted views of the city. She also had a home in Carmel, and would spend her time between both residences, painting many pictures in Carmel, inspired by the beautiful coastal town. She was part of the founding, in 1927, of the Carmel Art Association.

From the 1920s, Champlin painted primarily California landscapes, though she painted briefly in Zion Canyon, in Utah, in 1935. She had earlier painted landscapes of Galveston, Texas; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; and even Venice, Italy.

Some exhibitions include the Carmel Art Association; California Art Club, Los Angeles; Del Monte Hotel, Monterey; Pasadena Society of Artists; Pasadena Art Institute; Laguna Beach Art Association; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Artists of Chicago; and John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Indiana. Champlin's exhibition career spanned nearly fifty years from early in the century to the late 1940s.

Champlin's art education also included the Art Students League, New York City; the Ipswich School of Arthur W. Dow, in Ipswich, Massachusetts; the Landscape School, Old Lyme, Connecticut; as well as in Europe. Some of her teachers at the various institutions include Henry B. Snell, John Carlson, Charles W. Hawthorne, and Fred Freer.

Ada Belle Champlin died in Pasadena on December 16, 1950.

Source:
Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki Kovinick, "Women Artists of the American West"

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