Born in Suffield, Connecticut, painter Willis Seaver Adams (1842-1921) is known mainly for his landscapes of the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts. He studied in Antwerp, Belgium, and lived for a time in Cleveland, Ohio. He later opened a studio in Venice, Italy, and became friends with American painter James McNeil Whistler (1834-1903). In 1906, Adams moved to Greenfield, Massachusetts, where he had converted a barn into a studio. He lived there with his dog, Collie. The same year Adams moved to Greenfield, his works were included in an exhibit in neighboring Deerfield, Massachusetts, and were praised in Greenfield’s Gazette and Courier as being “conspicuous by their merit.”