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With his top hat, spats, and cane, Chase was one of the most dapper and cosmopolitan artists of his day.

This portrait was cut down because a critic said the ship deck where Chase stood was “not in good perspective.”

Beckwith and Chase returned from their studies abroad on the same ship in 1878.

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James Carroll Beckwith

Portrait of William Merritt Chase, 1881-1882

oil on canvas

78 x 38 in.

Gift of the Artist

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Born in Hannibal, Missouri, Beckwith moved with his parents to Chicago and enrolled at the Chicago Academy of Design.  His family moved to New York City in 1871 where Beckwith enrolled in the antique class at the National Academy of Design. He sailed to England in 1873 and spent the next five years living primarily in Paris and studying in the studio of portraitist Emile Carolus-Duran.  Beckwith also enrolled in the Académie Suisse to broaden his training.  He returned to New York in 1878 and was hired as an instructor at the Art Students League. Beckwith devoted his own painting to portraits and idealized female figures.  He exhibited annually at the National Academy of Design and was active with the Society of Painters in Pastel, American Watercolor Society and Society of American Artists. In 1893 Beckwith painted murals for the dome of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition.

In 1878 abroad a steamer bound for America, the painters William Merritt Chase and James Carroll Beckwith renewed their friendship.  Chase was returning form seven years of study in Munich, and Beckwith had just completed his training in Paris.  Both young men were returning to teach at New York’s recently founded Art Students League.  During the winter of 1881-1882 Beckwith executed this portrait of his colleague.  His canvas falls squarely within the tradition of the full-length, somber-colored portraits by John Singer Sargent, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Chase himself.  With spats, cane, and arching moustache, Chase is already the dapper gentleman artist whose personality and prowess would have a prominent place in American painting for the next three-and-a-half decades. Beckwith noted in his diary: “Well I am all set for the salon and I dare sincerely think how my big portrait will do there.  Chase came this PM for all this afternoon and I much improved it indeed.  “The sight of Chase in his frame encouraged me enormously.  Salon this morning. My first sight of Chase in the canvas lifted my spirits for all day.  On May 9, 1910 Beckwith wrote, “I sent Chase’s portrait as a gift to the museum in Indianapolis.  Having learned that it would be welcome. 

Reference

Bruce Weber and Pepi Marchetti Franchi. Intimate Revelations: The Art of James Carroll Beckwith, New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 1999. No ISBN Number.  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-073524.