A cosmopolitan painter with a progressive outlook, William Merritt Chase was a master of technique, whether working in oil, tempera, pastel, or print. Stylistically, he moved easily between the painterly realism that characterized his portraits, interiors, and still lifes, and the modified impressionist approach he applied to the sparkling images of modern life that dominated his work of the late 1880s and 1890s. As well as attaining recognition as one of the most acclaimed painters of Gilded Age America, Chase was known as a man of culture and refinement––a dapper trendsetter who, through his avid collecting of antiques, tapestries, and curios, helped disseminate the goals and objectives of the prevailing Aesthetic Movement. A popular and charismatic teacher too, Chase’s emphasis on individual self-expression and his belief that an artist should “experiment in all kinds of ways” and “work in all mediums” influenced a generation of up-and-coming painters ranging from realists such as Rockwell Kent and Charles Hawthorne to modernists, among them Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, and Joseph Stella.
Born in Williamsburg (now Nineveh), Indiana, Chase received painting lessons from a local artist, Barton S. Hays, until 1869, when he traveled to New York to study privately with Joseph Oriel Eaton and attend classes at the National Academy of Design. Upon losing his family’s financial support in 1870, Chase then went to St. Louis, where he painted still lifes and the occasional portrait until the summer of 1872, when he set sail for Europe. After stops in London and Paris, Chase went on to Germany, where he embarked on a period of study at Munich’s Royal Academy, a training ground for fellow Americans such as Walter Shirlaw and Franck Duveneck. While honing his technical skills at the academy, Chase also came under the spell of Wilhelm Liebl, a key exponent of Munich Realism, with its emphasis on bravura brushwork and dark palette. He also found himself drawn to the fluent technique of Baroque painters such as Frans Hals.
Upon returning to America in the autumn of 1878, Chase joined the faculty of the Art Students League of New York, where he taught during 1885, 1886–96, and 1907–12. He also moved into the legendary Tenth Street Studio Building, going on to create a lavishly decorated studio that served as an important gathering place for the artistic community, as well as a subject for many of his paintings. Seeking to make his mark in a highly competitive art market, Chase also became an active participant in the professional artists’ organizations of his day, including the venerable National Academy of Design, the Tile Club, and the Society of Painters in Pastel. Most importantly, he began exhibiting his work at the annuals of the Society of American Artists, established in 1877 by a group of European-trained painters whose penchant for the sketchy qualities of contemporary French art set them apart from their more conservative counterparts at the National Academy of Design. Along with his innate talent and outgoing personality, Chase’s affiliation with the Society of American Artists––where he served as president in 1880 and 1885–96––proved vital in establishing his meteoric rise in the art world during the 1890s.
Intent on developing his own personal style and enhancing his knowledge of artistic movements of both the past and present, Chase made annual trips to Europe from 1881 to 1885. In Madrid, for example, he studied the work of Old Masters such as Diego Velázquez, while in Paris he fraternized with fashionable figure painters, among them Charles Auguste Carolus-Duran, Alfred Stevens, and John Singer Sargent. Chase also exhibited his oils at the Paris salons and, in keeping with his desire to absorb the latest innovations and ideas, he familiarized himself with French Impressionism, as well as with aspects of Japonisme and contemporary photography.
One of the most sought-after portraitists of his day, Chase’s figural work includes commissioned portraits of celebrities and society types, likenesses of friends and students, and portrayals of interesting people he met on his travels. Following his marriage to his former model, Alice Gerson (1866–1927) in 1886, the artist went on to create his most original body of work. One of the first Americans to respond to Impressionism’s emphasis on modern themes, Chase turned his attention to colorful portrayals of New Yorkers (primarily mothers, nurses, and children) strolling the lawns and pathways of Prospect Park and Central Park. Chase later transferred his interest in impressionist precepts from the city to the country. In 1891––at the suggestion of Mrs. William S. Hoyt, a well-to-do amateur artist who spent her summers in Southampton, on the south shore of Long Island––he founded the Shinnecock Hills Summer School, which became the largest and best-known summer art school in the United States.
