Hall at Shinnecock

Set in the first-floor hall of William Merritt Chase’s Long Island, New York, residence, Hall at Shinnecock offers a glimpse into the domestic life of the artist. Reclining in an upholstered chair, Chase’s beloved wife and frequent model, Alice Gerson Chase, is dressed in black mourning for the couple’s young son, who had died the previous year; two of the couple’s eight surviving children, probably daughters Alice and Koto, sit on the floor, a book of Japanese prints casually unfolded between them. The rich, eclectically furnished hall, hung with framed artworks and glowing with sunlight, spreads beyond them. The view is curtailed at the right by a wall, but on the left the vista terminates in a bulky armoire with mirrored doors that reflect the artist himself at his easel, positioned as the viewer and acknowledged by the glance of little Alice near the picture’s center.

One of Chase’s most ambitious works in the medium of pastel, Hall at Shinnecock emphasizes pastel’s distinctive dry softness in open strokes of pure color. Chase was a master of the challenging medium, which he encouraged American artists to take up by co-founding the American Society of Painters in Pastel in New York in 1884. For this work Chase used pastel’s soft but luminous color and applied the medium rapidly to bear witness to a routine yet fleeting moment of private life. His concern that art reflect modern experience, along with his use of evident, distinct strokes of unblended color to describe the transient visual effects of the scene, demonstrate his sympathy with the contemporary movement known as impressionism, of which he was an active supporter in the United States. As the principal instructor of the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art between 1891 and 1902, he emphasized the impressionist method of painting en plein air, or outdoors, rather than in the studio. His teachings were reflected in his own paintings of the Shinnecock landscape, such as the Terra Foundation’s Morning at Breakwater, Shinnecock (1999.30).

In an earlier pastel, Shinnecock Studio Interior, (TF 1992.5) also in the Terra Foundation’s collection, Chase had already experimented with the motif of a child on the floor examining a book of Japanese prints arranged to lead the eye into the composition. This book and the large Oriental vase on a stand anchoring the view on the right announce Chase’s sympathy with Japonisme, the European and American passion for all things Japanese that rapidly followed the opening of trade between Japan and the West in the 1850s. The tipped-up perspective and casual asymmetry of the composition indicate that Chase had absorbed more than a collector’s interest in Japanese aesthetics. Hall at Shinnecock also demonstrates the artist’s career-long admiration for the work of Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), for whom the artist named his daughter Helen Velasquez. The devices of the child gazing directly at the viewer and the mirror in the background reflecting figures just beyond the boundaries of the image pay homage to Velázquez’s masterpiece Las Meninas (1656, Museo del Prado, Madrid).

Hall at Shinnecock ranks as the most important of Chase’s many images of his own interiors, including his studios in the New York Tenth Street Studio Building and his Shinnecock house. Designed in an American vernacular style by architect Stanford White, the latter was Chase’s home for one of the happiest and most productive periods of his life and along with its surrounding scenery was the setting for some of his most innovative works. As a subtle self-portrait of the artist with his family, Hall at Shinnecock blends Chase’s professional identity and domestic life in a highly personal declaration of the persona of the modern artist.

Chase Exhibition, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, November 23–December 26, 1897, no. 49 (as The Japanese Book pastel).

Loan Exhibition of Paintings by William Merritt Chase, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York (organizer). Venue: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, February 19–March 18, 1917, no. 27.

Exhibition of Paintings by William Merritt Chase N.A., 1849–1916, Newhouse Galleries, New York, New York (organizer). Venue: Newhouse Galleries, New York, New York, February 28–March 25, 1933, no. 21.

William M. Chase, 1849–1916: A Selected Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, American British Art Center, New York, New York (organizer). Venue: American British Art Center, New York, New York, November 9–December 4, 1948, no. 17.

Chase Centennial Exhibition, 1949, John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana (organizer). Venue: John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana, November 1–December 11, 1949, no. 37. [exh. cat.]

Impressionism and Its Influence in American Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California (organizer). Venues: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, January 3–31, 1954; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, February 10–March 7, 1954; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, Texas, March 21–April 18, 1954; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, May 3–30, 1954; M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, June 8–July 5, 1954, no. 11. [exh. cat.]

The First West Coast Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by William Merritt Chase (1849–1916), The Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Barbara, California (organizer). Venue: The Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, October 6–November 8, 1964; La Jolla Museum of Art, La Jolla, California, December 1–27, 1964; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, January 10–February 7, 1965; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, March 3–April 4, 1965; The Gallery of Modern Art and the Huntington Hartford Collection, New York, New York, April 27–May 30, 1965. [exh. cat.]

William Merritt Chase Retrospective Exhibition, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (organizer). Venues: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, October 2, 1983–January 29, 1984; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York. [exh. cat.]

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

William Merritt Chase: Summers at Shinnecock, 1891–1902, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venues: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., September 6–November 29, 1987; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, December 13, 1987–February 28, 1988. [exh. cat.]

An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 28–October 1, 1988.

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 1990.

American Treasures: Chase, Whistler, and the Prendergasts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 26, 1996–January 5, 1997.

Domestic Bliss: Family Life in American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–June 22, 1997.

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 2000.

On Process: Studio Themes, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 13–March 4, 2001.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003 (on exhibit extended run: November 2, 2002–March 2, 2003).

Modern Views: Picturing Victorian Life, The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, July, 2005–March 2006. (Print & Drawing Gallery 163 installation; object on view July–December 2005).

Pons-Sorolla, Blanca and Mark A. Roglán, Sorolla and America. Madrid: Ediciones el Viso, 2013. Text pp. 89-90; fig. 53, p. 90 (color).

William Merritt Chase , The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, Terra Foundation for American Art (organizers). Venues:The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, June 4–September 11, 2016; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, October 9, 2016–January 16, 2017; Ca’ Pesaro (Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia), Venice, Italy, February 11– May 28, 2017 [exh. cat.] (exhibited in Washington, DC and Boston, Massachusetts only) [exh. cat.]

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Loan Exhibition of Paintings by William Merritt Chase. (exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1917. Cat. no. 27, pp. 15–16.

Exhibition of Paintings by William Merritt Chase N.A., 1849–1916. (exh. cat., Newhouse Galleries). New York: Newhouse Galleries, 1933. Cat. no. 21, p. 87.

William M. Chase, 1849–1916: A Selected Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings. (exh. cat., American British Art Center). New York: American British Art Center, 1948. Cat. no. 17.

Chase Centennial Exhibition. (exh. cat., John Herron Art Museum). Indianapolis, Indiana: John Herron Art Museum, 1949. Text cat. no. 37 (as The Hall at Shinnecock).

Impressionism and Its Influence in American Art. (exh. cat., Santa Barbara Museum of Art). Santa Barbara, California: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1954. Cat. no. 11; ill. cover (as Studio in Shinnecock).

The First West Coast Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) . (exh. cat., The Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Barbara). Santa Barbara, California: Regents of the University of California, 1964. Cat. no. 15 (as Hall at Shinnecock (Mrs. Chase and Children)).

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