Reed Champion () was an American artist and illustrator. She was also known by her married name, Reed Pfeufer, and sometimes used the pseudonym John Corvus.

Biography

Champion was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the daughter of William Julius Champion who founded the Kalah board game company, and Alice Viola Champion, a grassroots organizer and founder of the Harwich Children's Theater on Cape Cod. Raised in the Quaker religion, she attended the

Moses Brown School Moses Brown School is an independent Quaker school located in Providence, Rhode Island, offering pre-kindergarten through secondary school classes. It was founded in 1784 by Moses Brown, a Quaker abolitionist, and is one of the oldest prepara ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

. She later studied painting under a scholarship to the Museum School in Boston. During the 1930s and 40s she was loosely associated with the

Boston Expressionism Boston Expressionism is an arts movement marked by emotional directness, dark humor, social and spiritual themes, and a tendency toward figuration strong enough that Boston Figurative Expressionism is sometimes used as an alternate term to distingu ...

school of painting. During the Works Projects Administration (WPA), she was secretary of the Boston Artists' and Writers' Union. In 1947, she was included in "Thirty Massachusetts Painters," an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, along with

Jack Levine Jack Levine (January 3, 1915November 8, 2010) was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives. Levine is considered one of the key artists of the Bos ...

Maud Morgan Maud (Cabot) Morgan (March 1, 1903 – March 14, 1999) was an American modern artist and teacher who is best known for her abstract expressionism. She mentored Frank Stella and Carl Andre, and had art pieces shown alongside such notable contempor ...

Karl Zerbe Karl Zerbe (September 16, 1903 – November 24, 1972) was a German-born American painter and educator. Biography Karl Zerbe was born on September 16, 1903 in Berlin, Germany. The family lived in Paris, France from 1904–1914, where his fat ...

, and other Boston area artists. She illustrated numerous children's books for

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

, United Church Press, and other publishers, and worked as a commercial artist. She designed the poster for the first

Newport Jazz Festival The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hir ...

in 1954. In the late 1940s she was a mentor to

Fernando Zóbel de Ayala y Montojo Fernando Zóbel de Ayala y Montojo Torrontegui (August 27, 1924 – June 2, 1984), also known as Fernando M. Zóbel, was a Spanish Filipino painter, businessman, art collector and museum founder. Early life Zóbel was born in Ermita, Manila i ...

, then a student at Harvard. Champion's paintings and prints have been exhibited at the Horticultural Hall, the

Chicago Art Institute The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, the

Cincinnati Museum of Art The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ov ...

, the

Cape Cod Museum of Art Cape Cod Museum of Art is an art museum in the town of Dennis in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States in the center of the region Cape Cod. References External links Cape Cod Museum of Art official website Art museums and galler ...

, and other venues. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Cape Cod Museum and many private collections. Champion married James F. Pfeufer, also an artist, . The couple had three children. The family frequently spent time on

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

, moving permanently to

Brewster, Massachusetts Brewster is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, Barnstable County being coextensive with Cape Cod. The population of Brewster was 10,318 at the 2020 census. Brewster is twinned with the town of Budleigh Salterton in the U ...

, in 1972. Champion died of heart failure in Hyannis on December 5, 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Champion, Reed 1997 deaths American women painters American women illustrators American illustrators People from Barnstable County, Massachusetts Artists from Newton, Massachusetts Moses Brown School alumni