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While painting in France and Holland, Chase also started using pastel; back in

New York, his work in the medium infl uenced other artists, and he helped found

the American Society of Painters in Pastel (see Hall at Shinnecock, pages 46–47).

During another visit overseas in 1885, Chase befriended Whistler in London, and

the two traveled together to Holland before parting on strained terms.

New York Cityscapes

In 1887 Chase married Alice Gerson, a young woman who, along with her sis-

ters, had modeled for the artist since her girlhood. Alice gave birth to their fi rst

child the day after their wedding—twelve more children, seven of whom survived

infancy, would follow. Th e scandal of Alice’s pregnancy compelled the couple to

leave Manhattan for the more private confi nes of Brooklyn (see Washing Day—A

Backyard Reminiscence of Brooklyn, page 49). In years to come, Chase’s wife and

children would be the subjects of many of his fi nest paintings.

In the late 1880s, Chase became the fi rst major American artist to paint

the urban landscape in oil. Between 1886 and 1890 he surveyed the straight

and winding pathways, open spaces and shaded bowers of Prospect Park and

Tompkins Park in Brooklyn and Central Park in Manhattan (see A City Park,

above). Th e many canvases Chase painted and exhibited of the parks were stud-

ies of cultivated landscapes and a gentrifi ed populace. Mostly, mothers and

young children feature in these paintings, refl ecting the new circumstances of

Chase’s own life. Sometimes Chase painted his young family relaxing by the

Brooklyn waterfront, but more often he set up on the city’s docks to paint small

ABOVE: Not only was the composi-

tion of A City Park (ca 1887; oil on

canvas, 13^55 ⁄ 8 x19^5 ⁄ 8 ) modern in its

vast open foreground and plunging

diagonal walkway, but the paint-

ing was thematically unusual as

well. Chase biographer Barbara

Dayer Gallati wrote of his genteel

urban narratives, “Yet even these

tentative forays around the margins

of modern life are extraordinarily

progressive in comparison with the

imagery of Chase’s American col-

leagues.”

ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, BEQUEST OF

DR. JOHN J. IRELAND

OPPOSITE: Idle Hours (ca 1894; oil

on canvas, 25½x35½) captures

the domestic indolence of a sum-

mer day at Shinnecock; the only

threat to the mood is provided by a

vaguely ominous bank of clouds.

AMON CARTER MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART,

FORT WORTH, TEXAS

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