Adele Barnes Stackpole (née Adele Esther Barnes), painter, printmaker designer, and sculptor, was born to Harry Clinton and Elmira Barnes in Sacramento, California on 6 July 1885. According to the 1900 US Census, her family was living in Oakland, California where she had graduated from Oakland High School in 1904. Barnes was in the first graduating class of the California College of Arts and Crafts where she studied under Xavier Martinez. She then studied architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

Adele Barnes married the sculptor Ralph Stackpole in 1912 and the couple resided in San Francisco, California. She created a bronze tablet in 1919 for the senior class of Santa Clara High School as a memorial for four young men who died in World War I. The Stackpoles divorced about 1923 and Adele took their son Peter to live in Oakland. She designed houses in Berkeley as well as rugs, lamps and screens. She also a gifted book plate designer. Her work is the collection of Mills College, Oakland, California.

Adele Esther Barnes Stackpole died on 17 June 1979 in Oakland, California.