James Wells Champney was born in Boston. He took drawing lessons at the Lowell Institute in Massachusetts when he was young and apprenticed as a wood engraver when he was 16. He fought at Gettysberg during the Civil War with the 45^th Massachusetts Volunteers. After the war he taught drawing briefly and then went to Europe where he studied in Paris and Antwerp. He married in 1873 and he and his wife Elizabeth frequently collaborated: she was also an illustrator and writer for numerous publications and he illustrated several of her travel books.

Champney concentrated on genre subjects which he rendered in both oil and pastel. He would become especially proficient in the use of pastel and after 1885 would use this medium almost exclusively. In 1869 Champney set up a studio in Boston and in 1873 was asked by Scribner's Magazine to illustrate a series of articles on the Reconstruction South by Edward King. An associate member of the National Academy of Design in New York, Champney exhibited paintings at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 and pastels at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Champney became well known for his portraits of members of New York society and its theatrical world.