WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE (1849-1916)

Shinnecock Hills from Canoe Place, Long Island (At Canoe Place)

Oil on canvas
17 ½ x 27 ¼ inches
Inscribed on the reverse (previous to lining):
Property of the Shinnecock School No 1 Art
by William M. Chase
Painted in 1897

PROVENANCE

The Shinnecock School, Shinnecock, New York

Douglas John Connah, Essex County, Connecticut, 1907-1941

Mrs. Virginia Davidson Strecker, Essex County, Connecticut, from 1941-1987

Hammer Galleries, New York

Private Collection, Madison, Connecticut

EXHIBITIONS

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 72nd Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, January 19-February 28, 1901, no. 93

The Art Club of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Annual Exhibition of Watercolors and Pastels, 1902, no. 213

Hammer Galleries, New York, 19th and 20th Century American Paintings, Recent Acquisitions, Fall 1989, pp. 6-7 (reproduced)

Hammer Galleries, New York, Long Island Landscapes, 1870-Present, April 24-May 31, 1995 (reproduced on cover)

LITERATURE

James William Pattison, “The Buck Collection of Watercolors – Historic, Artistic, Complete,” Fine Arts Journal 24 (June 11, 1911): 378 (reproduced)

page 2, Chase, Shinnecock Hills from Canoe Place, Long Island

Wilbur Peat, "Checklist of Known Work by William M. Chase," Chase Centennial Exhibition (Indianapolis, Indiana: John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, 1949), n.p.

Ronald G. Pisano, Research Report, unpublished manuscript, March 26, 1987, Hirschl
& Adler Galleries, New York, pp. 1-2, 3 (reproduced, titled At Canoe Place)

Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase Research Report, November 24, 1987
(titled At Canoe Place)

Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase Research Report, December 19, 1989
(titled At Canoe Place [Shinnecock Hills from Canoe Place, Long Island])

William Merritt Chase’s interest in painting landscapes increased in the 1890s while the artist was spending summers in Shinnecock on the southern shore of Long Island. Although he had painted in the open air earlier in his career, he devoted
his major attention in the 1870s and 1880s to portrait and figure painting. His greater involvement with landscape painting coincided with his adoption of an Impressionist style. Impressionism principally motivated him to expand his range
of color, to emphasize the luminous effects of light and atmosphere, and to crop his images to create a greater sense of immediacy. Chase, like his colleague John Twachtman, never fully committed himself to Impressionist methodology. He found it too scientific and objected to its harsh colorism. He preferred to paint with short brushstrokes rather than broken ones, believing that his technique could just as effectively create an impression of atmospheric vibration.

At Shinnecock, Chase directed a school of outdoor painting from 1891-1902. The idea for the school came about in 1890 among several women residents of the area. Upon visiting Shinnecock later that year the women invited him to teach. Leading the initiative was Mrs. William Hoyt, who persuaded Mrs. Henry Kirke Porter and Samuel L. Parrish to donate the land for a school and a house for the artist. By the winter of 1891, Hoyt had raised enough money to build a studio for the school and to secure Chase’s employment, and, that summer, Chase and his family took up residence at the Canoe Place Inn. At this time there were reportedly only “a few students who boarded around and painted in a general way out of doors under Mr. Chase’s direction” (Philip Poindexter, “The Shinnecock Art School,” Frank Leslie’s Weekly 75 (September 1892); 230). The following summer, however, attendance increased significantly, and the school was firmly launched. Cottages were built for students to reside in during the summer months, and a large, barnlike studio building was constructed to accommodate classes for instruction and criticism. The collection of buildings soon became known as the Art Village, and was located halfway between Shinnecock Hills and Southampton.

Chase taught on Mondays and Tuesdays and had the rest of the week free for painting. On Monday morning he would give a critique of the past week’s work at the studio building. The students’ sketches would be set up on a large two-sided easel, approximately seven feet high and twelve feet long. Chase would be occupied with one side while the other side would be prepared with new canvases. Each of the students had one to six canvases out for inspection and criticism. Chase would stay after the session to answer questions till lunchtime. Tuesday he gave instruction in the field. Students usually completed a sketch in the morning and one in the afternoon. At times Chase opened his own studio to the public and, once a month, delivered a public talk on art. The school also offered instruction in drawing by Rosina Emmett and in watercolor by Rhoda Holmes Nichols. At Shinnecock, William Merritt Chase was at the height of his artistic powers. The art writer and aesthetician John Van Dyke felt that “It was then and there that Chase did perhaps his best teaching and painted his best work not only in landscape, shore piece, and marine, but in portraiture, genre, and still-life” (Van Dyke, American Painting and Its Tradition [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919], p. 200).

Shinnecock Hills from Canoe Place, Long Island dates from 1897 and may have originally been painted as a demonstration piece for his Long Island students in outdoor painting. It was originally in the possession of the Shinnecock School of Art, and probably hung in the studio building in the Art Village. The painting then passed to the artist Douglas John Connah, who ran the Shinnecock School of Art following the artist’s departure in 1902, and tried unsuccessfully to continue the various classes elsewhere on Long Island with other instructors. Connah also assisted and eventually took over the operation of the Chase School in New York in 1907. In 1902, Chase authority Ronald G. Pisano speculated that it “is possible that Connah received this painting as recompense for unpaid wages at the time the [Chase School] was restructured in 1907; or, there might have been some sort of sale of the paintings the school owned and displayed by its instructors.” (Ronald G. Pisano, William Merritt Chase Research Report, December 19, 1989). Connah had a home in Essex, Connecticut, and following the sale of the property the landscape passed to the new owner Mrs. Virginia Davidson Strecker.

In Shinnecock Hills from Canoe Place, Long Island Chase’s brushwork is spirited and his color fresh and clear. The dunes, scrub foliage and the water of the Canoe Place canal sparkle in the sunlight. The residents of the area initially wondered what Chase and his students would find to admire in the area’s low-lying landscape, which was broken only by sand dunes, houses, coarse sea grass, bayberry bushes and other plant life. Shinnecock’s terrain led Chase to focus his attention on its low horizon, big sky, and the changing aspect of its light and atmosphere. To enliven some of his works he would incorporate figures into his compositions. As in many of his landscapes of the area the foreground is the most painterly area of the work while the landscape in the distance is treated in a tighter and more precise manner. While the work is dominated by blues and greens, Chase incorporates a complex and subtle variety of shades. In Shinnecock, Chase took a direct approach to his outdoor work. Upon the opening of his school in 1891, he  related his opinions about outdoor painting: “I carry a comfortable stool that can be closed up in a small space and I never use an umbrella. I want all the light I can get. When I have found the spot, I set up my easel, and paint the picture on the spot. I think that is the only way rightly to interpret nature. I don't believe in making pencil sketches and then painting your landscape in your studio. You must be right under the sky” (A.R. Ives, "Talks with Mr. William M. Chase," Art Amateur [September 25 1891]: 80).

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