Red Star Line ship that J. Ottis Adams and T.C. Steele took to Europe in 1880 photo credit: http://www.redstarline.eu

Adams and Steele traveled together on Red Star Line from New York to Munich for further art study in 1880. During their time in Germany, they explored nearby villages and forests, which provided some early inspirations for their landscape paintings. After Steele was back in the United States, he wrote to Adams to ask him to return: “There is a whole world over here in the American artist [’s] native land and a world with which he should be most familiar that has been comparatively untouched”. Responding to Steele’s request, Adams returned.

In the summer of 1895, Adams and Steele went together to paint on the Mississinewa River in Indiana. Two years later, Adams and Steele moved to the same studio in Brookville, which they called the Hermitage. The two artists continued to exchanged letters until their final days, and their friendship was well documented in their writings.

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