CHAMPNEY, James Wells, painter, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 16 July, 1848. When sixteen years old he began his art education under a wood-engraver in Boston. In 1863 he served a short time in the 45th Massachusetts volunteers, and later taught drawing in Lexington, Massachusetts. In 1866 he went to Europe, and studied in 1867-'8 in Paris under Edouard Frere, and in Antwerp at the academy. After spending the winter of 1869-'70 in Rome, he returned to the United States and opened a studio in Boston, but was in Europe again in 1871-'2. In 1873 he travelled in the southern United States to make sketches for Edward King's "New South," and in 1874-'5 went again to Europe and sketched in Spain during the Carlist war. In 1876 he built a studio in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he has since spent most of his summers, his winter studio being in New York city. Mr. Champney is a member of the American society of painters in watercolors, and in 1882 was elected an associate member of the National academy. His works include "Which is Umpire?." (1871); " Sear Leaf" (1874); " Not so Ugly as he Looks" (1875);'" Your Good Health" (1876); " Where the Two Paths Meet" (1880); "Indian Summer" (1881); "Bonny Kil-meny," "Boarding-School Green-Room" (1882); " Pamela," "Hide-and-Seek," " Eunice" (1884); " In May Time," "He Loves Me " (1885); " Saturday Eve," "Griselda," "Song without Words" (1886).--His wife, Lizzie Williams, born in Ohio in 1850, is the author of " In the Sky-Garden," a book of astronomical fitbles (Boston, 1876); "All Around a Palette" ; "Bourbon Lilies"; and other tales and sketches, besides a novel called "Sebia's Tangled Web," and " Three Vassar Girls in South America" (1885). Most of these books were illustrated by her husband.