Champney, Benjamin

Benjamin Champney was born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire in 1817. In Boston, Champney was an apprentice in Pendleton’s lithographic studio and took drawing lessons from Robert Cooke (c. 1810-1843). In 1841, he went into business with Cooke as a portrait painter. Between 1841 and 1843, when Cooke died at Barriere de L’Etoile, France, the two men traveled around Europe together. Interrupted by the Revolution of 1848, Champney returned to America and exhibited his “Panorama of the Rhine” in Boston and New York City to great critical acclaim. About 1850, he turned his attention to landscape painting, making his summer headquarters on the Saco River at North Conway, N. H. and wintering at Woburn, Mass, where he died in 1907. From the early 1850s, Champney did much to attract other artists to the White Mountains, including John F. Kensett. With great love and admiration, Champney described the White Mountains as “one of the most charming places in the world.” He was a founder of the Boston Art Club and a frequent exhibitor there. He also exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum, the American Art Union, the Parios Salon (1844,45), the National Academy of Design, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His autobiography, Sixty Years’ Memories of Art and Artists, was published in 1900 and is still an important work today.