William Merritt Chase: Teaching in Shinnecock

"The Bayberry Bush (Chase Homestead in Shinnecock Hills)
by William Merritt Chase

"In 1891 Mrs. Hoyt, an amateur artist, who had a summer home at Shinnecock Hills, urged William Merritt Chase to start a summer school there. Mrs. Henry Porter, of Pittsburgh, another summer resident, also became interested in the idea. They offered to give Chase the land upon which to build a summer home for himself and a school studio as well. Chase was delighted with the place and accepted their offer.

Students came from all over the country, and many painters, who are now well known, were among them. The school grew, enrolling some years as many as a hundred students. The school building contained a large room where criticisms were held, a studio for indoor painting on rainy days, and a supply shop for materials.

Chase gave two criticisms a week. Every Monday morning the week's work was taken to the studio and put up on a special sort of easel resembling a blackboard, which held a number of sketches at a time. After the criticism Chase remained at the studio until lunch time, so that the students could ask questions or submit for further criticism some sketch made the preceding week. He also gave a talk once a month and  painted regularly as a lesson for the class, a landscape, a head, or a bit of still life. Students were encouraged to ask questions. These were written on slips of paper and dropped in a little box. During his lectures and his weekly criticisms Chase undertook to answer all these faithfully.

On Tuesdays Chase went off with the class for the entire day, a wise arrangement, as there could be no more stimulating time to put into effect what had been learned than after one of his criticisms, for he always made the student feel that the next time he was going to do the best thing he had ever painted. The students soon discovered that if they chose a subject along the road leading from Chase's house to Southampton they were sure of an extra criticism. Chase could seldom pass a painter at work pupil or stranger, at home or abroad. Especially if the unknown artist seemed poor and uninstructed did that generous soul want to offer all he had to give, so beautiful was his feeling for the thing that the worker was struggling, however obscurely, to express."

To be continued

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