William Merritt Chase
Portrait of a Man Facing Left
c. 1890

About the Item

Portrait of a Man Facing Left Monotype printed in brown ink, c. 1880-1914 Signed in ink lower left: Chase (see photo) Provenance: Helen Chase Storm (the artist's daughter) Jackson Chase Storm (her son) Chapellier Galleries (as agent) James Bergquist, Boston References And Exhibitions: Exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. (See MFA paperwork in photos) Reference: Ronald G. Pisano, Completed by D. Frederick Baker and Carolyn K. Lane, William Merritt Chase: Still Lifes, Interiors, Figures, Copies of Old Masters, and Drawings, Catalogue Raisonne, Vol. IV (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), Vol. 1, M. 8. (See photos of entry) William Merritt Chase (1840-2016) Born in Nineveh, Indiana Died New York, New York In 1883 Chase was involved in the organization of an exhibition to help raise funds for a pedestal for the Statute of Liberty. The exhibition featured loans of three works by Manet and urban scenes by the Italian Impressionist Giuseppe de Nittis. Both artists influenced Chase's Impressionistic style that gave rise to a series of New York park scenes. It is also thought that he was influenced by John Singer Sargent's In the Luxembourg Gardens (1879) which was exhibited in New York at this time. Indeed, Chase had met Sargent in Europe in 1881, the two men becoming lifelong friends with Sargent painting Chase's portrait in 1902. On another European trip in 1885, Chase met James McNeill Whistler in London. While Whistler had a reputation for being difficult, the two artists got along famously and agreed to paint one another's portrait. Eventually, however, Whistler's moods began to grate with Chase who wrote home stating "I really begin to feel that I never will get away from here". For his part, Whistler criticized Chase's finished portrait and, according to Hirshler, "complained about Chase for the rest of his life". While no record exists of Whistler's portrait of Chase; Chase's portrait of Whistler remains a well-known piece in his oeuvre. In 1887 Chase married Alice Gerson, the daughter of the manager of a lithography company. Though some fifteen years his junior (Chase was 37), he had known Alice for some time through her family's devotion to the arts. The pair, who would enjoy a happy marriage with Alice in full support of her husband's career, settled initially in Brooklyn where their first child was born. The couple would parent six daughters and two sons and it was only his family that could rival his devotion to his art. Indeed, Chase often combined his two loves by painting several portraits of his wife and children in Brooklyn parks before the couple relocated to Manhattan. Later Period Between 1891 and 1902, Chase and his family spent their summers at a purpose-built home and studio in Shinnecock Hills, a close suburb of the upmarket town of Southampton on the south shore of Long Island (roughly 100 miles east of New York). Chase set up, and taught two days a week, at the nearby Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art which benefitted from the financial backing of local art collectors. It was at Shinnecock that Chase, taken in by the region's striking natural surroundings, painted several Impressionistic landscapes. As Bettis put it, "There, among the dunes, in the bright sunlight and sea air his painterly impulse was given free sway, and he produced some of his freest and loveliest work". His passion for the area was so felt he even gave his daughter Hazel the middle name of Neamaug, in honor of the rich Native American history of Shinnecock. Chase was equally focused on the students that came to the School and who he encouraged to paint in the modern plein air style favored by the French Impressionists. Although Chase was making a name for himself as an Impressionist, he never abandoned his commitment to the sombre tones and academic tropes he had learned in Munich, though these he reserved for his portraits, and for his series of striking still lifes featuring dead fish. Chase was in fact a successful society portraitist - he painted fashionable women for a fee of $2,000 - and would paint his students as "samples" which he then donated to leading art institutions (such as Lady in Black (1888) which he donated to the Metropolitan Museum in 1891). In 1896, facing financial difficulties, Chase flirted with the idea of giving up his teaching in New York and traveled with his family to Madrid where he developed a passion for bullfighting. Chase returned however to Shinnecock in June to teach his yearly summer art class, and in the fall of that year, established his own art school in Manhattan: the Chase School which was modelled on the Académie Julian in Paris. Chase lacked business savvy, however, and the Chase School lasted only two years before it was placed under new management. It continued as the New York School of Art (changed to Parsons School of Design starting 1941) with Chase as head the School for eleven more years. Chase also taught during this period at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1902, following the premature death of his friend John Twachtman, Chase was invited to join the Ten American Painters group (who included amongst its members, Frank Weston Benson, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Robert Reid and Julien Alden Weir) with whom he continued to exhibit for the remainder of his career. Like Chase, the other group members were committed to the philosophy of Eclecticism. As the art historian Isabel L. Taube described it, Eclecticism amounted to more than just a "jumble of sources" and depended rather on "clear intention and reason instead of chance and intuition". She adds that by the late nineteenth century "discussions of eclecticism in popular magazines and trade publications emphasized the difficult and serious study required to achieve a harmony of diverse elements in architecture as well as the fine and decorative arts". Though he painted and exhibited until his death in 1916, in this later years Chase devoted more and more time to teaching, dividing his time between Europe and America. Between 1902 and 1913 he spent his summers travelling to Europe where he taught classes in Belgium, England, Italy, Holland and Spain. His last European class was held in Venice in the summer of 1913. Chase had also taken great pride in the studio set up he established at Fourth Avenue in 1908. Here he taught private classes while continuing to work enthusiastically on his own paintings. He maintained his association with the Art Students League of New York until 1912 and, in 1914, he experienced a new teaching environment by conducting summer classes on the West Coast in Carmel, California. During the winter of 1916, Chase began to feel unwell. Though he continued to paint, he grew increasingly ill from what was diagnosed as cirrhosis of the liver. Forced to cut short a visit to Atlantic City, Chase returned to New York where he died two days later aged just sixty-six. The Legacy of William Merritt Chase Chase had a profound impact on shaping the development of modern art in the United States. As curator Erica Hirshler explains, "Chase developed an American version of Impressionism to depict modern subjects" and started incorporating other modern artmaking techniques in the way he "often employed daringly abstract compositions, devising interlocking patterns of vertical and horizontal lines or dramatic diagonal sweeps that provided a firm geometric foundation for his loose strokes of color". She adds that he "also experimented with different media and was an innovator in the revival of painting in pastel". Indeed, according to the Phillips Collection website, as "co-founder of the progressive Society of American Painters in Pastel, Chase was a leader in the late 19th-century revival of pastel painting and one of its most innovative practitioners". Chase also created an impressively important legacy as an art teacher. While the notion of plein air painting had been embraced by the French Impressionists, Chase led the way in importing that approach to America; both through the example of his own works but also by encouraging his students to engage in the practice as well. Unlike some instructors who required students to mimic their own methods, Chase chose simply to encourage his students to explore their own artistic paths. As Hirshler explains, "perhaps Chase's success as a teacher is marked by the fact that only some of his students followed his stylistic example; others - among them Lydia Field Emmet, Rockwell Kent, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Charles Sheeler, and Georgia O'Keeffe - used what they learned in his classes as a springboard for their own artistic innovations". He was also considered a trailblazer in his appreciation of women artists. As author Christina Michelon explains, "Chase's modern thinking extended to [...] his mentoring of female students. Courtesy of The Art Story

Creator:
William Merritt Chase (1849-1916, American)
Creation Year:
c. 1890
Dimensions:
Height: 21.38 in (54.31 cm)Width: 17.38 in (44.15 cm)Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)
Medium:
Monoprint
Movement & Style:
Impressionist
Period:
1890-1899
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Fairlawn, OH
Reference Number:
Seller: FA15011stDibs: LU1409490682
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