William merritt chase biography channel

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.

William merritt chase biography channel

He also exhibited his first painting at the National Academy in 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, a long-standing center of art training that was attracting increasing numbers of Americans.

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,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 was exhibited at the Boston Art Club; later that year it was exhibited and won a medal at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and this success gained Chase his first fame.

Chase traveled to Venice, Italy in with Duveneck and John Henry Twachtman before returning to the United States in the summer ofa highly skilled artist representing the new wave of European-educated American talent. He also opened a studio in New York in the Tenth Street Studio Building, 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, Arthur Quartley and Augustus Saint Gaudens.

Chase cultivated multiple personnae: sophisticated cosmopolitan, devoted family man, and esteemed teacher. 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. Indeed, Chase had met Sargent in Europe inthe two men becoming lifelong friends with Sargent painting Chase's portrait in 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 Chase married Alice Gerson, the daughter of the manager of a lithography company. Though some william merritt chase biography channel years his junior Chase was 37he 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. Between andChase 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 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.

Infacing 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 lacked business savvy, however, and the Chase School lasted only two years before it was placed under new management. Chase also taught during this period at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Infollowing 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 william merritt chase biography channel 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 inin this later years Chase devoted more and more time to teaching, dividing his time between Europe and America. Between and 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 Chase had also taken great pride in the studio set up he established at Fourth Avenue in 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 and, inhe experienced a new teaching environment by conducting summer classes on the West Coast in Carmel, California. During the winter ofChase 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. 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 19 th -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 HartleyEdward HopperCharles Sheelerand 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 [ Content compiled and written by Jessica DiPalma. Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Antony Todd. The Art Story. Ways to support us. Movements and Styles: American Impressionism.

Important Art. The Tenth Street Studio Portrait of Dora Wheeler The Young Orphan James McNeill Whistler A Comfortable Corner Lilliputian Boat-Lake - Central Park Shinnecock: Studio Interior Idle Hours Still Life: Fish Childhood and Education. Early Training. Mature Period. Later Period. In his landscapes, Chase began using the French concept of flaneur, or painting observers of modern, urban life, choosing parks and harbors in Manhattan and Brooklyn, which challenged the critics label of him as a realist.

The French influence partially came from his admiration of Whistler, and his works. William painted in the open air plein airand also taught classes outdoors. His impressionist paintings include visible brush strokes, an open composition, and an emphasis on light reflection, using ordinary subject matter, and unusual angles of objects. The Study of Flesh Color and Gold was painted in using pastels.

Chase surpassed all other artists of this time in the use of pastels. Pastels gave his art greater receptivity to light and a smooth, soft texture. He composed his paintings to underscore abstract elements. He uses rectangular patterns on the floor, wall, and couch and contrasts them to the more curvaceous figures such as the figures, chairs and pillows.

Reflective imagery using a mirror, suggests his respect of the seventeenth-century Spanish artist, Velazquez. Chase composed sketches, such as Venetian Lace Making, using graphite on paper. InChase helped to organize an exhibition to raise funds to construct a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty ; the loans included three works by Manet. City scenes by Giuseppe de Nittis may also have influenced Chase in the mids.

Personal factors apparently prompted Chase to paint city parks. In February when he was thirty-sevenhe married Alice Gerson then about twentythe daughter of the manager of a large lithography firm. It was about this time that Chase first painted nearby Prospect Park and Tompkins Park; he would paint Central Park when he and his family moved back to Manhattan.

Park images by artists whom Chase admired may also have influenced his choice of this subject. For example, in Europe inChase had met John Singer Sargentwho would become a lifelong friend see During his student years in Munich, Chase had become aware of James McNeill Whistler and saw his works in the early s. Instopping in London on his way to Spain, Chase introduced himself to Whistler, who proposed that they paint portraits of one another.

To depict Whistler Before the rift, Whistler may have discussed urban scenes with his visitor. After all, Whistler had made etchings of London and Paris in the s and painted London park scenes between and see Chase could have seen modern urban subjects painted in modern styles in New York in Aprilwhen the Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel opened a huge exhibition of about paintings by the leading French Impressionists.

Park subjects allowed Chase—a master eclectic—to respond to the example of painters he admired.