.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In 1890, William Merritt Chase was invited to Shinnecock, near the village of Southampton on the eastern end of Long Island, by Mrs. William S. Hoyt, an amateur painter and summer resident of the rapidly developing area. Encouraged by this beautiful landscape, Chase was soon convinced to join in efforts to start the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art. With an enormous natural gift for teaching Chase spent over eleven summers there and his school developed into one of the strongest of its kind in the country. Dedicated to painting out of doors, directly from nature, “Chase and his pupils,” writes Ron Pisano, “were interested in capturing fleeting impressions of the landscape, swiftly painted and filled with bright sunlight.” (A Leading Spirit in American Art: William Merritt Chase, 1849-1916, Seattle, Washington, 1983, p. 121) Filled with bright sunlight and bravura impressionist technique, Untitled (Shinnecock Landscape) embodies Chase’s seminal teachings and is a fine example of the artist’s celebrated Shinnecock paintings.
Fred Baker writes of the present work, “This work is an example of Chase’s plein-air landscape painting in Shinnecock, likely painted there in 1907, some years after the closure of the Shinnecock School of Art. Whether large or small, Chase’s Shinnecock Hills landscapes emphasized the expansive vistas of far eastern Long Island. Furthermore, he used particular compositional devices to enhance this effect. In the present work, the artist has presented a broad, open space, interrupted by only two of his children, likely Alice Dieudonnée and Koto Robertine, and a few small bushes, which serve to mark the space and create a sense of depth within the composition. As elsewhere, he uses the meandering sand path to lead the viewer into the picture plane. A personal touch is achieved by having his younger daughter look back at her sister, keeping her in sight lest she become lost in the otherwise unpopulated landscape.” (William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil, vol. III, New Haven, Connecticut, 2009, p. 141-42, no. L.291, illustrated.)
Chase gave the present work as a Christmas gift in 1907 to Alice Rogers Lane, who may have been his student, and it has descended within her family to the current owner.
Fred Baker writes of the present work, “This work is an example of Chase’s plein-air landscape painting in Shinnecock, likely painted there in 1907, some years after the closure of the Shinnecock School of Art. Whether large or small, Chase’s Shinnecock Hills landscapes emphasized the expansive vistas of far eastern Long Island. Furthermore, he used particular compositional devices to enhance this effect. In the present work, the artist has presented a broad, open space, interrupted by only two of his children, likely Alice Dieudonnée and Koto Robertine, and a few small bushes, which serve to mark the space and create a sense of depth within the composition. As elsewhere, he uses the meandering sand path to lead the viewer into the picture plane. A personal touch is achieved by having his younger daughter look back at her sister, keeping her in sight lest she become lost in the otherwise unpopulated landscape.” (William Merritt Chase: Landscapes in Oil, vol. III, New Haven, Connecticut, 2009, p. 141-42, no. L.291, illustrated.)
Chase gave the present work as a Christmas gift in 1907 to Alice Rogers Lane, who may have been his student, and it has descended within her family to the current owner.