William Merritt Chase: The Tile Club

"The Tile Club at Work" by Charles Stanley Reinhart

"Soon after William Merritt Chase's return to America the Tile Club asked him to become a member. This famous club, which lasted for about eight years, was originally limited to twelve members and was composed of some of the most distinguished artists in America, including such well-known artists as Winslow Homer, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Edwin Austin Abbey, J. Alden Weir, and John H. Twachtman.

Meetings were held once a week. A different member furnished the tiles and the supper, and afterward became the owner of the baked and decorated tiles produced that evening. Pipes, beer and cheese usually constituted the evening's entertainment - and sometimes such delicacies as sardines were also offered.

It was the custom of the Tile Club to take a pleasure journey en masse each summer. One year it was a canal-boat trip up the Hudson River and through the Erie Canal. A suitable boat was found for seven dollars a week, partitions knocked out to make one large salon which was decorated with Chase's Tenth Street Studio trappings, including tiger skins. They sailed away toward evening, the musical members playing and singing, banner flying, Japanese lanterns lit as the Gerson girls waved farewell.

As they drifted up the Hudson, some set up their easels and umbrellas and sketched while others watched and criticized. They sang, told stories, talked about the passing scenery and art, enjoyed the fine cooking of Chase's manservant Daniel, laid in hammocks and smoked. When the party reached the Erie Canal, their mules decorated with Spanish bridles, their Japanese lanterns and Oriental hangings created great excitement among the populace. When the excited children on the banks became too vociferous, Laffan, by previous arrangement with the willing Twachtman, ran out upon the deck crying, 'Run for your lives, The Twachtman is loose!' at which Twachtman uttered frightful groans and rattled an old piece of chain he had found in the hold."

To the painters recently returned from Europe the Tile Club furnished the artistic atmosphere to which they had grown accustomed in Munich and Paris, and of which they felt the lack in America. It remains to this day to the men who were part of it a light-hearted memory of happy comradeship."

To be continued

For more on The Tile Club, see: https://viewer.joomag.com/the-tile-club-camaraderie-and-american-plein-air-painting-the-tile-club/0176846001519407571?short&

(Excerpts are from Katharine Metcalf Roof's biography "The Life and Art of William Merritt Chase.")