White Mountain Art - Benjamin Champney and The Allure of North Conway

Benjamin Champney and The Allure of North Conway

Benjamin Champney, a New Hampshire native, made his first trip to the White Mountains in 1838 on a summer excursion. As an emerging artist in the second half of the 19th century, Champney’s style was influenced by the Hudson River School, yet he developed a unique style of his own. Dr. Donald D. Keyes has stated, "Champney witnessed major artistic changes; yet his art remained solidly in the camp of the Romantic artists of his youth." In 1853, Champney bought a home in North Conway and spent the rest of his life painting in the greater Conway area. He attracted other artists to the region and opened his studio to them as well as to tourists. Champney, in his autobiography of 1900, wrote: "My studio has been the resort of many highly cultivated people from all parts of our country and even from foreign lands, and I have enjoyed much and learned much from the interchange of ideas with refined and intelligent minds." He also described the popularity of North Conway, "Thus every year brought fresh visitors to North Conway as the news of its attractions spread, until in 1853 and 1854 the meadows and the banks of the Saco were dotted all about with white umbrellas in great numbers."

Largely because of Champney’s promotion of the area, these artists traveled to North Conway in the summer to paint. The area was filled with artists painting en plein air. By 1855, North Conway had become " … the pet valley of our landscape painters. There are always a dozen or more here during the sketching season, and you can hardly glance over the meadows, in any direction, without seeing one of their white umbrellas shining in the sun," thus echoing Champney's own words. By the 1850s, North Conway had arguably become the first artist colony in the United States. Winslow Homer (1836–1910) depicted these artists in his 1868 painting titled Artists Sketching in the White Mountains.