Biography

Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, Ada Shulz became known for her impressionist paintings of mothers and children in outdoor settings, especially Brown County, Indiana. Her works, mostly painted outdoors, featured lush scenery and the warmth and sunlight of Indiana summers. Shulz began her art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago with John Vanderpoel and Oliver Pennet Grover and then studied in Paris at the Vitti Academy. In 1892 she traveled with Vanderpoel's class to Delavan, Wisconsin, where she met her future husband, artist Adolph Shulz. They remained in Delavan for the next twenty years and had a son, Walter, who also became an artist but died a premature death in 1918. In 1910 she and her husband began spending their summers painting in Brown County, Indiana. They moved there permanently in 1917 and helped to establish the Brown County Art Colony. The couple divorced in 1926.

Brown County Art Colony

The Brown County Art Colony was formed in the early 1900s by artists who were attracted by the undisturbed picturesque landscape known as Peaceful Valley.  T.C. Steele was the first to become a resident of the county when he purchased 200 acres near Belmont. Adolph Shulz is considered to be the founder of the Brown County Art Colony.  He began visiting Brown County in 1908 and in 1917 became a permanent resident. Both Adolph Shulz and T.C. Steele influenced other artists and many began building cabins and moving to the area.  Will Vawter and Gustave Baumann were among the first to make Brown County their home.  Other artists such as Charles Dahlgreen, Lucie Hartrath, and L.O. Griffith came from Chicago and by the early 1930s there were at least eighteen artists with permanent homes in Brown County.  Artists such as C. Curry Bohm, Edward K. Williams, Ada Walter Shulz, Carl Graf, V.J. Cariani, Gustav Baumann, Will Vawter, Dale Bessire, Georges LaChance, Marie Goth, Leota Loop, Adam Emory Albright, Olive Rush, and Alexis Fournier flourished and created the Brown County Art Colony nearly 100 years ago.

Sources:

Letsinger-Miller, Lyn. The Artists of Brown County. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Nesbit, M. Joanne, ed., Barbara Judd, comp. Those Brown County Artists: The Ones Who Came the Ones Who Stayed the Ones Who Moved On. Nashville: Nana’s Book, 1993.