Ada Walter Shulz

Ada Walter Shulz (October 21, 1870 – May 2, 1928) was an American painter, whose Impressionistic painting style primarily featured themes of mothers, children, and barnyard animals.

In 1917 she moved from her longtime home in Delavan, Wisconsin, with her artist husband, Adolph Shulz, and son Walter, to the Brown County Art Colony in Nashville, Indiana.

From 1889 to 1893 Ada took lessons at the Art Institute of Chicago, where her instructors included John Vanderpoel, Oliver Dennett Grover, Frederick Freer, A. Kellogg, C. Wade, and Lorado Taft.

[5][7] Two weeks after their marriage in September 1894, the Shulzes sailed to Paris, where Ada studied at the Académie Vitti under Luc-Olivier Merson and Raphaël Collin.

[13] Ada and Adolph Shulz built a home on land they purchased on Hoop Pole Ridge in Nashville and were members of the Brown County Art Colony.

[5] Unlike most of the Brown County Art Colony, who were primarily landscape painters, the major themes and subject matter of her Impressionistic style were mothers, children, and barnyard animals.

[7][17] Ada and Adolph Shulz's son, Walter, began developing a career as an artist in Delavan, Wisconsin, prior to his enlistment and assignment to the Sixteenth Infantry, First Division, in France.

Although he survived the fighting during World War I, Walter volunteered for occupation duty and died of diphtheria on December 12, 1918, after a hiking and sketching trip through the German countryside.

The marriage became even more strained in 1921 after Adolph became the art teacher of Alberta Rhem Miller and allowed her and her young daughter to stay at the Shulz home in Nashville.

She also became active in the Indiana Artists Club; however, her health declined after a solo exhibition of her work was held at the Milwaukee Journal Art Gallery in March 1928.