William Merritt Chase: Efforts at Art

"Apprentice," 1875 by
William Merritt Chase

"William Merritt Chase returned for a time to the uncongenial task of clerk in his father's shop, but the art impulse still persisted and found its way to expression. Up to this time the young artist had never had the opportunity to use oil paints, but when he found a number of cans of house paint at home an idea struck him. He painted a portrait of the ship's captain on a large piece of sheet iron, and delighted with the possibilities he next painted a picture of his father's calf, his brother holding the reluctant animal in pose.

Another day Chase decided to make a plaster cast of his mother, but being inexperienced, he found himself unable to remove the hardened plaster which stuck to the patient lady's eyebrows. The frightened younger children stood about while young William chipped away the plaster bit by bit.  It is a testimony to the maternal devotion that Mrs. Chase, after this highly unpleasant experience, consented to the operation again. This time everything worked perfectly.

He often pressed his brothers and sisters into service as models. The attempt to reproduce what he saw had an unceasing fascination for him. Finally, his father consented to take his son to an artist and get his opinion about the boy studying drawing. However, the painter prophesied that the boy could never hope to succeed in his chosen career.

This had the opposite effect upon William. He started in with even greater determination, bought his first box of real painting materials and began to experiment with them. His father took him to another artist. This man, Benjamin Hayes, realized at once that the boy had talent and accepted him as a pupil. 

Chase made great strides now, and after several months of instruction his teacher declared his pupil had learned all that he could teach him. He suggested that the young man should be sent to New York, giving him a letter to artist and instructor J.O. Eaton. That was in 1869. At that time William Chase was exactly twenty years old."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase" by Katharine Metcalf Roof.)