Background
Benjamin Champney was born on November 20, 1817 at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, United States. He was one of the seven children of Ebenezer and Rebecca (Brooks) Champney. The father, a lawyer, died young, leaving his widow poor.
(My friends have urged me to this because they say I am on...)
My friends have urged me to this because they say I am one of the very few links remaining to connect the older generation of artists with the present schools, and they have thought what I might say of the long past and succeeding years might be of interest at the present time to students in art. Much of this story was written some six or seven years ago and put aside as of no value, but again I was urged to go on, and now have recorded my impressions and clear recollections of times past. B. C. Woburn, (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org
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Benjamin Champney was born on November 20, 1817 at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, United States. He was one of the seven children of Ebenezer and Rebecca (Brooks) Champney. The father, a lawyer, died young, leaving his widow poor.
Benjamin at the age of ten was sent to an aunt at Lebanon, where he attended the district school twelve weeks each winter and worked in a cotton-mill forty weeks. After four years he returned to his mother and entered Appleton Academy, intending to take advantage of a West Point cadetship promised him by Franklin Pierce, then a representative. "Like many other congressmen he made too many promises, " Champney afterward wrote of Pierce.
Disappointed, the boy obtained a clerkship with Henry L. Daggett, a Boston shoe-dealer. From the shop's back window he looked into a lithographer's studio where he saw artists and engravers at work. For years he had drawn pictures and he was now emboldened to think of this as a means of livelihood. He went one day into the lithographic place, but, receiving only discouragement, resumed selling shoes. A little later, however, Robert Cooke, head draftsman at the lithographer's, took a room at Champney's boarding-house and the two became friends. Cooke directed Champney's drawing and aided him in securing admittance as an apprentice in Moore's lithographic establishment. Here Champney did commercial work, having among his associates William Rimmer. Then, together with Cooke, he opened a studio for portraiture. The two had success, and saved money for study abroad, sailing May 1, 1841. At Paris they studied with Boudin, and copied at the Louvre. Champney became friendly with J. F. Kensett and the veteran John Vanderlyn, the latter employing him as assistant in painting "The Landing of Columbus, " for the Capitol at Washington. Kensett and Champney made trips to Fontainebleau, where they painted from nature, then an unusual practice. Champney exhibited in the Salon and sent to Boston copies from old masters which were sold. In 1846 he returned to America in the Anglo-Saxon, wrecked off Nova Scotia. After a brief stay, he sailed back to Europe with W. Allan Gay to paint a panorama of the Rhine. Though interrupted by the political upheaval of 1848 they finished the gigantic piece which was exhibited in 1849 at the Horticultural Building, Boston. It was financially unsuccessful and in 1853 was destroyed in the Crystal Palace fire in New York. Turning his attention to landscape, Champney in 1850 discovered North Conway as painting ground. He was joined by Kensett, Alfred Ordway, and others. "By 1853, " he wrote, "the meadows and banks of the Saco were dotted all about with white umbrellas. " As a painter he followed the formula of the so-called Hudson River school which lost its vogue in the late nineteenth century. He was a catholic critic of other artists' work--an admirer of the Barbizon painters long before their merits were generally appreciated and of Claude Monet before the Impressionists' theory of values was popularly understood. He is well represented at the Boston Art Club and the Woburn Public Library.
(My friends have urged me to this because they say I am on...)
In 1853 he married Mary C. Brooks.
