Willis Seaver Adams

Willis Seaver Adams (1844–1921) was a landscape painter who studied under James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium and was part of the Tonalism movement, which took place in the late 19th century.

His father was a farmer and operated a tavern out of the house located by the Enfield and Suffield Covered bridge over the Connecticut River.

Willis Seaver Adams traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, for a two-week vacation that extended into a two-year residence (1876–78) where he met some other young, upcoming artists, Otto Henry Bacher and Sion Longley Wenban.

During his time in Cleveland, Adams avoided capturing industrial motifs in his paintings or scenes depicting modern advances of 19th century life, which led to his naturalist ideology; he also developed an interest in spiritualism.