William Merritt Chase
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
known as an exponent of Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons The New School for Design
Parsons The New School for Design
Parsons The New School For Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is the art and design college of The New School university. It is located in New York City's Greenwich Village, and has produced artists and designers such as Marc Jacobs, Dean and Dan Caten, Norman Rockwell, Donna Karan, Jane...
.
Early life and training
He was born in Williamsburg (now NinevehNineveh, Indiana
Nineveh is an unincorporated community in Nineveh Township, Johnson County, Indiana, United States. Scenes from the movie Hoosiers were shot in the old high school which was renamed "Hickory High School" for the film....
), Indiana, to the family of a local merchant. Chase's father moved the family to Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
in 1861 and employed his son as a salesman in the family business. Chase showed an early interest in art, and studied under local, self-taught artists Barton S. Hays
Barton S. Hays
Barton Stone Hays was an early Indiana artist and teacher.He was a self-taught artist who was known for his portraits, landscapes and still life paintings. While working in Indiana from 1850 to 1882, Hays taught such important young artists as William Forsyth, John Elwood Bundy and William...
and Jacob Cox
Jacob Cox
Jacob Cox was a landscape and portrait painter in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Several of his paintings are in the Morris-Butler House. He is also known for his paintings of Indiana Governors James B. Ray, Noah Noble, David Wallace, Samuel Bigger, Joseph A. Wright, and Henry S...
.
After a brief stint in the Navy, Chase's teachers urged him to travel to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to further his artistic training. He arrived in New York in 1869, met and studied with Joseph Oriel Eaton
Joseph Oriel Eaton
Joseph Oriel Eaton, an American painter of portraits and figure subjects, both in oil and in water-colours, was born in 1829. He died at Yonkers on the Hudson in 1875. Among his exhibited works were:*Landscape: View on the Hudson. 1868....
for a short time, then enrolled in the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
under Lemuel Wilmarth, a student of the famous French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.-Life:Jean-Léon Gérôme was born...
.
In 1870 declining family fortunes forced Chase to leave New York for St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, where his family was then based. While he worked to help support his family he became active in the St. Louis art community, winning prizes for his paintings at a local exhibition. He also exhibited his first painting at the National Academy in 1871. Chase's talent elicited the interest of wealthy St. Louis collectors who arranged for him to visit Europe for two years, in exchange for paintings and Chase's help in securing European art for their collections.
In Europe Chase settled at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich was founded 1808 by Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria in Munich as the "Royal Academy of Fine Arts" and is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany...
, a long-standing center of art training that was attracting increasing numbers of Americans. He studied under Alexander von Wagner
Alexander von Wagner
Alexander originally Sándor von Wagner was a Hungarian painter.- Biography :Wagner was born in Pesth. After graduating from the Real-Gymnasium in his hometown at the age of nineteen, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts at Vienna, where he was a student of Henrik Weber...
and Karl von Piloty
Karl von Piloty
Karl Theodor von Piloty was a German painter.Von Piloty was born in Munich. His father, Ferdinand Piloty , enjoyed a great reputation as a lithographer. In 1840, Karl was admitted as a student of the Munich Academy, under the artists Karl Schorn and Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld...
, and befriended American artists Walter Shirlaw
Walter Shirlaw
Walter Shirlaw was a Scottish-American artist.-Biography:Shirlaw was born in Paisley, Scotland, and moved to the United States with his parents in 1840. He worked as a bank-note engraver, and his work was first exhibited at the National Academy in 1861.He was elected an academician of the Chicago...
, Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck was an American figure and portrait painter.-Youth:Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernard Decker. Decker died when Frank was only a year old and his widow remarried Joseph Duveneck...
, and J(oseph) Frank Currier. Upon Chase's death, in his Estate auction, he owned more works by Currier than any other artist. In Munich, Chase employed his rapidly burgeoning talent most often in figurative works that he painted in the loosely-brushed style popular with his instructors. In January, 1876, one of these figural works, a portrait titled "Keying Up" – The Court Jester (now in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the oldest art museum and school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th and 20th century American paintings,...
) was exhibited at the Boston Art Club
Boston Art Club
The Boston Art Club, Boston, Massachusetts, for nearly 157 years, serves as a nexus for Members and non Members to access the world of Fine Art. Currently more than 250 members maintain an active environment for the support and promotion of these works....
; later that year it was exhibited and won a medal at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition
Centennial Exposition
The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...
, and this success gained Chase his first fame.
Chase traveled to Venice, Italy in 1877 with Duveneck and John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation...
before returning to the United States in the summer of 1878, a highly skilled artist representing the new wave of European-educated American talent. Home in America, he exhibited his painting Ready for the Ride (collection of the Union League Club) with the newly-formed Society of American Artists
Society of American Artists
The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative....
in 1878. He also opened a studio in New York in the Tenth Street Studio Building
Tenth Street Studio Building
The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in New York City in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists...
, home to many of the important painters of the day. He was a member of the Tilers, a group of artists and authors, among whom were some of his notable friends: Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, Arthur Quartley
Arthur Quartley
Arthur Quartley , was an American painter known for his marine seascapes.Quartley was born in Paris and lived there to the age of twelve, when his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. He studied drawing with his father Frederick William Quartley, who was an English engraver. His father was reputed...
and Augustus Saint Gaudens.
In 1881, friend and artist William Preston Phelps
William Preston Phelps
William Preston Phelps , known as "the Painter of the Monadnock", was an American landscape painter born on the family farm near Chesham, in what is now the Pottersville section of Dublin, New Hampshire on March 6, 1848 to mother Mary Phelps and father Jayson Phelps.-Early years:"Preston", as he...
travelled back to Europe to team up with Chase to go on a working tour of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
then back to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Chase's roles: father, artist, teacher
In New York City, however, Chase became known for his flamboyance, especially in his dress, his manners, and most of all in his studio. At Tenth Street, Chase had moved into Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. In obtaining the subject matter for these works, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion...
's old studio and had decorated it as an extension of his own art. Chase filled the studio with lavish furniture, decorative objects, stuffed birds, oriental carpets, and exotic musical instruments. The studio served as a focal point for the sophisticated and fashionable members of the New York City art world of the late 19th century. By 1895 the cost of maintaining the studio, in addition to his other residences, forced Chase to close it and auction the contents.
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
method of painting, and often taught his students in outdoor classes. He also opened the Chase School of Art in 1896, which became the New York School of Art two years later with Chase staying on as instructor until 1907. Chase taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1896 to 1909; the Art Students League
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
from 1878 to 1896 and again from 1907 to 1911; and the Brooklyn Art Association in 1887 and from 1891 to 1896. Along with Robert Henri
Robert Henri
Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School in art.- Early life :...
, who became a rival instructor, Chase was the most important teacher of American artists around the turn of the 20th century. In addition to his instruction of East Coast artists like Charles Demuth
Charles Demuth
Charles Demuth was an American watercolorist who turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism....
, Silas Dustin
Silas Dustin
Silas Dustin was an artist, art dealer and curator of the National Academy of Design in New York-Biography:Dustin was born in Richmond, Ohio although he is known as a California painter. He studied under William Merritt Chase in New York. Dustin became the curator of the National Academy of Design...
, Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley
Marsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
, M. Jean McLane
M. Jean McLane
Myrtle Jean McLane sometimes styled Jean MacLane was an American portraitist, born in Chicago, Illinois and died in New Canaan, Connecticut....
, Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
, and Edward Charles Volkert
Edward Charles Volkert
Edward Charles Volkert , was an American Impressionist artist best known for his colorful and richly painted impressionist landscapes. His trademark subject was that of cattle and plowmen. He has been referred to as America's cattle painter extraordinaire".The son of a hat merchant from Alsace,...
, he had an important role in influencing California art at the turn of the century, especially in interactions with Arthur Frank Mathews
Arthur Frank Mathews
Arthur F. Mathews was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a significant effect on the evolution of Californian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
, Xavier Martinez
Xavier Martinez
Xavier Timoteo Martínez was a California artist active in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was born in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, and, after becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States, died in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California...
and Percy Gray
Percy Gray
Henry Percy Gray was an American painter. Gray was born into a San Francisco family endowed with a broad literary and artistic background. He studied under Arthur Frank Mathews at the San Francisco School of Design and later under William Merritt Chase...
.
Portrait painting
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
and pastel
Pastel
Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....
, but also created watercolor painting
Watercolor painting
Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...
s and etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s. He is perhaps best known for his portraits, his sitters including some of the most important men and women of his time in addition to his own family. Chase often painted his wife Alice and their children, sometimes in individual portraits, and other times in scenes of domestic tranquility: at breakfast in their backyard, or relaxing at their summer home on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, the children playing on the floor or among the sand dunes of Shinnecock.
Landscapes
In addition to painting portraits and full-length figurative works, Chase began painting landscapes in earnest in the late 1880s. His interest in landscape art may have been spawned by the landmark New York exhibit of French impressionist works from Parisian dealer Durand-RuelPaul Durand-Ruel
Paul Durand-Ruel was a French art dealer who is associated with the Impressionists. He was one of the first modern art dealers who provided support to his painters with stipends and solo exhibitions....
in 1886. Chase is best remembered for two series of landscape subjects, both painted in an impressionist manner. The first was his scenes of
Prospect Park
Prospect Park (Brooklyn)
Prospect Park is a 585-acre public park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn located between Park Slope, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Kensington, Windsor Terrace and Flatbush Avenue, Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden...
, Brooklyn and Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
in New York; the second were his summer landscapes at Shinnecock. Chase usually featured people prominently in his landscapes. Often he depicted woman and children in leisurely poses, relaxing on a park bench, on the beach, or lying in the summer grass at Shinnecock. The Shinnecock works in particular have come to be thought of by art historians as particularly fine examples of American Impressionism
American Impressionism
Impressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-An emerging artistic style from Paris:...
.
Still lifes
Chase continued to paint still lifeStill life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s throughout his career as he had done since his student days. Decorative objects filled his studios and homes, and his interior figurative scenes frequently included still life images. He was particularly adept at capturing the effect of light on metallic surfaces such as copper bowls and pitchers. Perhaps Chase's most famous still life subject was dead fish, which he liked to paint against dark backgrounds, limp on a plate as though fresh from a fishmonger's stall.
Honors and late career
Chase won many honors at home and abroad, was a member of the National Academy of DesignNational Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, New York, and from 1885 to 1895 was president of the Society of American Artists
Society of American Artists
The Society of American Artists was an American artists group. It was formed in 1877 by artists who felt the National Academy of Design did not adequately meet their needs, and was too conservative....
. He became a member of the Ten American Painters
Ten American Painters
The Ten American Painters, generally known as The Ten, resigned from the Society of American Artists in late 1897 to protest the commercialism of that group's exhibitions, and their circus-like atmosphere...
after John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impressionism to be among the more personal and experimental of his generation...
died.
Chase's creativity declined in his later years, especially as modern art took hold in America, but he continued to paint and teach into the 1910s. During this period Chase taught such up and coming young artists as Arthur Hill Gilbert
Arthur Hill Gilbert
Arthur Hill Gilbert was an American Impressionist painter, notable as one of the practitioners of the California-style. Today, he is remembered for his large, colorful canvasas depicting meadows and groves of trees along the state's famed 17 Mile Drive...
. One of his last teaching positions was at Carmel, California in the summer of 1914. Chase died on October 25, 1916 in his New York townhouse, an esteemed elder of the American art world. Today his works are in most major museums in the United States. His home and studio at Shinnecock Hills, New York
Shinnecock Hills, New York
Shinnecock Hills is a hamlet in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The population was 1,749 at the 2000 census. It is the home of a leading golf club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. This is the highest point on Long Island's east end. At its highest point it is the only place on Long Island,...
was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1983 as the William Merritt Chase Homestead
William Merritt Chase Homestead
William Merritt Chase Homestead is a historic home located at Shinnecock Hills in Suffolk County, New York. It was built as a residence and studio for artist William Merritt Chase in 1892 by the prominent architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White. It is a -story frame structure sheathed in...
.