About This Artwork

William Merritt Chase
American, 1849-1916

A City Park, c. 1887

Oil on canvas
34.6 x 49.9 cm (13 5/8 x 19 5/8 in.)
Signed, lower right: "Wm M. Chase."
Bequest of Dr. John J. Ireland, 1968.88

William Merritt Chase's paintings of public parks in Brooklyn and Manhattan are intimate renditions of familiar locations that chart the artist's response to America's rapid urban growth. A City Park is an early example of Chase's park scenes and exhibits the dramatic spatial effects, high-keyed palette, and small scale that characterize these works and point to French Impressionist influences. It is probable that Chase executed his park scenes, like the French Impressionists, en plein-air. The strong light, vivid color, and fluid brushwork of A City Park suggest a spontaneous method of composition rather than a studio production. The small scale of the work also conforms to Chase's practice of painting outdoors unburdened by unnecessary or bulky materials.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Rochester Art Club, Ninth Annual Exhibition of the Rochester Art Club, May 22-June 2, 1888, cat. 10, as A City Park, lent by William Merritt Chase.

Paris, Exposition Universelle, May 5-Oct. 31, 1889, cat. 49, as Un Parc de Ville, lent by William Merritt Chase.

New York City, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, Auction of Paintings by William Merritt Chase, Mar. 6, 1891, cat. 31, as A City Park.

Southampton, New York, Parish Art Museum, William Merritt Chase in the Company of Friends, May 13-June 24, 1979, cat. 8, as A City Park.

Seattle, University of Washington, Henry Art Gallery, William Merritt Chase Retrospective, Oct. 2, 1983-Jan. 29, 1984, no cat.; traveled to New York City, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mar. 9-June 3, 1984.

Norfolk, Virginia, Chrysler Museum of Art, Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition, Sept. 29-Dec. 17, 1889, cat. 49; traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Feb. 1-Apr. 15, 1990, Memphis, Brooks Museum of Art, May 6-July 15, 1990, New York Historical Society, Sept. 5-Nov. 15, 1990.

Publication History

M.G. Van Rensselaer, “William Merritt Chase,” American Art Review 2 (1881), pp. 91-98.

Montezuma, “My Notebook,” Art Amateur 18, 2 (Jan. 1888), p. 28.

Keon Cox, “William M. Chase, Painter,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 78, 466 (Mar. 1889), pp. 549-57.

“Mr. Chase’s Pictures,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 15, 1889.

Charles DeKay, “Mr. Chase and Central Park,” Harper’s Weekly 35, 17 (May 2, 1891), pp. 327-28.

“The Slaughter of Mr. Chase’s Pictures,” Art Amateur 24, 5 (Apr. 1891), pp. 115-16.

A.E. Ives, “Suburban Sketching Grounds,” Art Amateur 25, 4 (Sept. 1891), pp. 80-82.

James William Pattison, “An Art Lover’s Collection,” Fine Arts Journal 28 (Feb. 1913), pp. 99-111.

Katharine Metcalf Roof. The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917).

Abraham David Milgrome, The Art of William Merritt Chase (Ph.D. Diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1969).

Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase (Watson-Guptill Publications, 1969).

Keith L. Bryant, Jr., William Merritt Chase: A Genteel Bohemian (University of Missouri Press, 1991).

David Schuyler and Jane Turner Censer, eds., The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: The Years of Olmsted, Vaux and Company 1865-1874 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), vol. 6.

Ronald G. Pisano, Summer Afternoons: Landscape Paintings of William Merritt Chase (Little, Brown, and Company, 1993).

William H. Gerdts, Impressionist New York (Abbeville Press, 1994).

Barbara Weinberg et al., American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885-1915 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994).

Barbara Dayer Gallati, William Merritt Chase (Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 1995).

Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998) pp. 250-52, no. 121.

Stanley Meisler, Smithsonian Magazine (Feb. 2001).

Judith A. Barter et al, The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011), no. 76.

Ownership History

William Merritt Chase, New York, from 1887 to 1891; Renaissance Gallery, Philadelphia, by 1950; Graham Gallery, New York City, 1950; Dr. John Jay Ireland, Chicago, 1956; bequeathed to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1968.