John Ottis Adams

J. Ottis Adams painted the Indiana countryside: rivers, meadows and misty mornings, especially along the Whitewater and Mississinewa. His work is American Impressionism at its gentlest, with broken colour, soft light and an affection for ordinary Midwestern landscape.

Born in Amity, Indiana, he studied at the South Kensington School of Art in London and at the Munich Academy. Back home he taught in Muncie and later in Indianapolis, and he helped establish the John Herron Art Institute. He was a founding figure of the Hoosier Group, a circle of Indiana painters who showed their work together from the 1890s. His Iridescence of a Shallow Stream won a bronze medal at the 1904 World’s Fair.

His paintings are held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Ball State University and the Indiana State Museum. Look for the seasonal light, which he recorded with care.