William Merritt Chase

1849 - 1916 • American • Painter • Impressionist

"My God, I'd rather go to Europe than to heaven! " - William Merritt Chase

Chase played three important roles: As a taste-maker he introduced French IMPRESSIONISM to America, as a teacher he taught the leaders of American Modernism (SHEELER, DEMUTH, and O'KEEFFE), and as an artist he was among the best-selling AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISTS. He was from a modest Indiana background, but he took easily to the fashionable world of New York and profited from his trip to Europe, as the quotation above suggests. To an early acquaintance with the MUNJCH SCHOOL, he added mastery of the PLEIN AIR landscape, and he evolved a personal, eclectic blend. Chase was less concerned with exploring the effects of light, which preoccupied many French Impressionists, than with developing his virtuosity and ability to use paint beautifully. He was also devoted to capturing the affect of those he loved. Whether painting his home, studio, or the sandy, sun-bleached coastline of Long Island where he spent summers, his own environment and family were frequently his subject matter. The Fairy Tale (1892), for example, is a sparkling, affectionate picture of his wife and one of his daughters seated among the dunes. There is a sense of pleasure and well-being about his pictures for which many critics dismiss him.