John Ottis Adams

John Ottis Adams (July 8, 1851 – January 28, 1927) was an American impressionist painter and art educator who is best known as a member of the Hoosier Group of Indiana landscape painters, along with William Forsyth, Richard B. Gruelle, Otto Stark, and T. C. Steele. In addition, Adams was among a group that formed the Society of Western Artists in 1896, and served as the organization's president in 1908 and 1909.

Adams grew up in central Indiana, but received his formal art training at the South Kensington School of Art in London and spent seven years in Germany, where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. Adams formed the Muncie Art School with Forsyth, but the school closed after two years. Adams also assisted in planning and taught art classes at the John Herron Art Institute, which later became the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, and gave informal art lessons at the Hermitage, his studio-home near Brookville, Indiana.