William Merritt Chase was one of the most influential painters in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. After an extended stay in Europe, which ended when he established his studio in New York City in 1878, Chase demonstrated his extraordinary versatility, painting portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and genre scenes. His vigor as an artist was equaled by his long and successful career as a teacher: his classes at the Art Students League in New York and the Shinnecock Hills Summer School on Long Island attracted many students.
In the mid-1880s, Chase embarked on a group of plein-air paintings inspired by New York’s parks. Influenced by the brilliant colors and unorthodox compositional formats of the French Impressionists, he often countered a broad, comparatively empty foreground with a detailed background. In this painting, which probably depicts Brooklyn’s Tompkins Park, almost half the canvas is filled by the wide, empty walkway, which, with its strong diagonal borders, carries the eye into the composition. This swift movement into space is slowed by the woman on the bench, who appears to gaze expectantly toward someone approaching along the path. To the left, colorful flowers provide a contrast to the bare walk at the right. This informal, seemingly spontaneous work, capturing the sparkle, light, and activity of a summer day, testifies to the freshness and vitality that Chase brought to the painting of such scenes.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
IIIF Manifest
The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.
James William Pattison, “An Art Lover’s Collection,” Fine Arts Journal 28 (Feb. 1913), 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), 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 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2011), cat. 76.
Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2017) p. 60.
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, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, Auction of Paintings by William Merritt Chase, Mar. 6, 1891, cat. 31, as A City Park.
Southampton, NY, Parish Art Museum, William Merritt Chase in the Company of Friends, May 13–June 24, 1979, cat. 8, as A City Park.
Seattle, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, William Merritt Chase Retrospective, Oct. 2, 1983–Jan. 29, 1984; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mar. 9–June 3, 1984, no cat.
Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Museum of Art, Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition, Sept. 29–Dec. 17, 1989; Philadelphia, 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, cat. 49.
Brooklyn Museum of Art, William Merritt Chase: Modern American Landscapes, 1886–1890, May 26–Aug. 13, 2000; the Art Institute of Chicago, Sept. 7–Nov. 26, 2000; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Dec. 13, 2000–Mar. 11, 2001, cat. 1.
Philadelphia, PA, Academy of the Fine Arts, The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement, 1887–1920, Feb. 12–May 24, 2015; Norfolk, Chrysler Museum, June 16–Sept. 6, 2015; Winston–Salem, MA, Reynolda House, Oct. 1, 2015–Jan. 3, 2016 (Philadelphia and Norfolk only), cat. 35.
Washington, DC, The Phillips Collection, William Merritt Chase, A Modern Master, June 4–Sept. 11, 2016; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Oct. 9, 2016–Jan. 16, 2017; Venice, Ca’ Pesaro–Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Feb. 11–May 28, 2017 (DC and Boston only), cat. 32.
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.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
