William Merritt Chase Prints Paintings

Visit Chase, William for a larger selection of his work.

Shell Beach at Shinnecock Art Print

In the Studio Art Print

The Beach Art Print

Prospect Park Brooklyn Art Print

Afternoonthe Sea Art Print

Dorothy Giclee Print

Under a French Sky Giclee Print

Seated Nude Giclee Print

Idle Hours Art Print

Olive Trees in Florence Giclee Print

Still Life with Fruit and Copper Pot Giclee Print

The Yellow Blouse Giclee Print

Shinnecock Hills View of Shinnecock Giclee Print

Portrait of a Woman Giclee Print

At the Window Giclee Print

During 1870 waning family fortunes pressured Chase to depart from New York and travel to St. Louis, Missouri, the area his family had been at that time settled. As he worked to assist his relatives he began participating in St. Louis art world, being awarded prizes with his art works in a local exhibits. Chase likewise presented his first painting in 1871 with the National Academy. His skill aroused the interest of moneyed St. Louis art collectors who made arrangements for Chase to travel to Europe for 2 years, in exchange for his future paintings along with Chase's assistance in procuring European paintings for their personal collections.

Friendly Call Giclee Print

Big Oleander Giclee Print

Young Woman in Pink Giclee Print

Back of Nude Giclee Print

Shinnecock Giclee Print

Country Lane Giclee Print

Along The Coast Giclee Print

Little Girl Giclee Print

Mrs. Chase in Spanish Costume Giclee Print

Portrait of Elderly Woman Giclee Print

While Chase had been in Europe, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, an established center for art education which had been drawing in a growing population of American artists and students. Chase studied with Alexander Von Wagner as well as Karl von Piloty, and became friends with American painters Walter Shirlaw, realist painter Frank Duveneck, and J Frank Currier. When Chase passed away, with his Estate sale, he possessed more art of Currier's than any artist had. While he was in Munich, Chase utilized his quickly growing skill most frequently on figurative pieces that he created in the informal brush method well liked with his teachers. During January, 1876, one of these figurative paintings, Keying Up The Court Jester had been presented at the Boston Art Club; afterward in the same year it had been displayed as well as awarded a medal in the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. This would be the first success of the artist's to attained fame.

Chase visited to Venice, Italy during 1877 acompanied by Duveneck and American tonalist and impressionist painter John Henry Twachtman prior to going back to the United States during the summer of 1878. Upon his return to the United States, Chase returned an extremely talented artist exemplifying the new era of European trained American talent. Upon reaching America, Chase would exhibit his piece Ready for the Ride in the recently founded Society of American Artists during 1878. He likewise opened his first studio in New York which was located in the Tenth Street Studio Building, base to several the significant painters of the time. Chase had been a member with Tilers, a circle of painters and writers, among them had been a few of his noteworthy friends: Winslow Homer, Arthur Quartley and Augustus Saint Gaudens.

Chase cultivated numerous persona: urbane cosmopolitan, committed family man, and respected teacher. He wed Alice Gerson during 1886 and the couple raised eight children together over Chase's most industrious creative time. His two oldest daughters, Alice Dieudonnee Chase and Dorothy Bremond Chase, frequently posed for their father's paintings.

Throughout New York City, nevertheless, Chase would become recognized for a showiness which he flaunted in his clothing, manners, and it was most apparent in his studio. At Tenth Street, Chase had transferred into Albert Bierstadt's previous studio and had embellished it as an extension of his personal work. Chase occupied the studio with opulent furnishings, ornamental items, stuffed birds, oriental rugs, along with exotic musical instruments. It functioned as a central location for the sophisticated and stylish members of New York City's art community during the late nineteenth century. With 1895 the price of sustaining the studio, as well as his additional homes, pressured Chase to shut it down and sell the furniture and items he had collected there.

Besides Chase's painting, he actively grew an interest in being an art instructor. With the encouragement of a patron, in 1891 Chase established the Shinnecock Hills Summer School in Long Island, New York where he would teach up to 1902. Chase took on the plein air style of painting, and frequently instructed his pupils in outdoor class rooms. He likewise established the Chase School of Art during 1896, that would become the New York School of Art two years afterward where Chase continued as a teacher up to 1907. He was an instructor with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1896 to 1909; the Art Students League between 1878 and 1896 and once more between 1907 and 1911; as well as with the Brooklyn Art Association during 1887 along with 1891 to 1896. Together with Ashcan school movement artist Robert Henri, who later would become a rival teacher, Chase had been the most significant instructor of American painters about the turn of the twentieth century. Besides his teaching of East Coast painters such as Charles Demuth, modernist painter and poet Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe and impressionist artist Edward Charles Volkert, Chase had a crucial part in shaping California art during the turn of the century, particularly in interactions with tonalist painters Xavier Martinez, Arthur Frank Mathews along with Percy Gray.

Chase had worked with all forms of media. He had been best with oil painting coupled with pastel, however likewise produced watercolor art works along with etchings. He is possibly most famous for his portrait paintings, his sitters were among the most distinguished men and women of his day as well portraits done of own family. He frequently painted his wife Alice along with his children, occasionally in single person portraits, or on other occasions in settings of home life and harmony.

Besides creating portraits along with full-length figural works, Chase started painting landscapes seriously during the later 1880s. His pursuit of landscape art could be bred by the leading New York exhibition of French impressionist art held by Parisian art dealer Durand-Ruel during 1886. Chase is most remembered for two sets of landscape themes, each created in an impressionist vein. The first had been views of Prospect Park, Brooklyn coupled with Central Park, New York; the next had been Chase's summer landscape paintings of Shinnecock. He normally used figures conspicuously with his landscapes. Oftentimes he rendered woman and children in unhurried positions, relaxing on a park seat, or resting on the summer grass at Shinnecock. The Shinnecock paintings particularly have become to be considered by art historians as especially good illustrations of American Impressionist art.

Chase kept painting still life subjects as he had been doing from his student years. Ornamental items filled up his studios along with houses, and his home figurative settings oftentimes made use of still life images. Possibly Chase's best known still life topic has been dead fish, that he preferred to paint placed against dark backdrops, slack on a plate as if fresh from the market.

Chase acquired several awards at home as well as overseas, had been a member of the National Academy of Design, New York, and between 1885 through 1895 had been president for the Society of American Artists. He had been a member of the Ten American Painters when John Henry Twachtman passed away.

Chase's creativeness decreased in his final years, particularly as modern art got attention in the United States, although he kept painting and teaching up to the 1910s. Among his final teaching positions had been in Carmel, California during the summer in 1914. Chase passed away on October 25, 1916 in his New York town home, an honored elder from the American art world. At present his paintings may be seen most leading museums in America.