Ada Walter Shulz

Ada Walter Shulz (October 21, 1870 – May 2, 1928) was an American painter.

Ada Walter was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, the daughter of an architect who died of diphtheria when she was young. She studied art at Indianapolis High School from 1885 until 1889; her mother had moved the family to Indianapolis so the girl would have an opportunity to develop her talents at the school. It was the head of the school art department, Roda Selleck, who first inspired in her an interest in drawing. From 1889 to 1893 she 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; from 1894 until 1895 she studied at the Académie Vitti in Paris under Luc-Olivier Merson and Raphaël Collin. She also summered in Delavan, Wisconsin, with Vanderpoel's class in 1892, and it was here that she met the artist Adolph Shulz, whom she was to marry in 1894. The couple, whose son Walter was born in 1895, settled in Delavan, where they were to remain for the next twenty years.

Shulz began exhibiting her work widely throughout the Midwest during this period of her career, and won acclaim for several magazine covers which she created. She and her husband began summering in Brown County, Indiana during the 1910s, and in 1917 chose to move there permanently, where Adolph would paint landscapes and Ada pictures of local mothers and children. Soon they became instrumental in the founding of the Brown County Art Colony. Walter began developing a career as an artist, but died prematurely of diphtheria in 1918 before he could fulfill his potential. His death caused the couple to grow apart, and they divorced on September 30, 1926. Ada began painting landscapes anew, but soon took ill; a Christian Scientist, she refused to seek medical treatment, and died in 1928 in Nashville, the county seat of Brown County. The cause of her death is unknown, but is believed to have been cancer. She is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Delavan.

Shulz favored painting outdoors throughout her career, and was particularly receptive to the effects of light. Her style was Impressionistic, and she favored children as subject matter. Her work is held in many collections, including those of the Art Institute of Chicago; Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites; the Ball State University Museum of Art; the Dailey Family Memorial Collection of Hoosier Art at Indiana University; the Brown County Art Gallery and Museum; and the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette.

Shulz is the subject of a biography, Children From the Hills: The Life and Work of Ada Walter Shulz, by Rachel Berenson Perry.