William Merritt Chase: Final Days

"The Young Orphan" by William Merritt Chase

"The winter of 1915-16 William Merritt Chase continued with his private class, but he did less painting than usual. Although not aware that he had any serious ailment, he was conscious of not feeling himself.

In the spring he gave a talk to the students of the Art League - his last. In May he went to the meeting of the Federation of Arts in Washington, the last public function that he was to attend. In June the New York University conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws upon him. Though he grew steadily weaker through the summer, he continued to go to his studio. A portrait of Mr. Gwathmey was his last work.

In September he went with Mrs. Chase to Atlantic City. The first days of his stay there Chase was able to walk a short distance. He bought a few rings at a near-by shop, and strongly desired a Japanese hanging of dark blue and silver that he saw in a window, but didn't buy it. So Mrs. Chase had it sent to the hotel as a surprise for him. He took a great fancy to this decoration, and had it placed where he could see it from his bed.

To ill to read and not wanting to be read to, he cared only to talk of pictures and art, reviewing with his wife the art treasures of the European galleries - playing a sort of game of remembering each detail of a canvas, even its placing upon the gallery wall, and what other pictures were in that same room. 

At last as he only grew weaker, he was taken back to New York. A few days before his death, while he was still able to talk, his friend Irving Wiles came to see him. Although very weak and near the end, he had sent to his studio for some pictures to show his painter friend. An artist to his inner most soul, that last characteristic act had a touching significance to those who knew and loved him.

As his wife was leaving the room to tell Wiles to enter, he called her back. He wanted the Japanese hanging arranged so that it would show all its beauties to the other artist. Before he died he expressed the wish that Wiles should finish his unfinished portrait commissions.

The last two days of his life he was unconscious. On October 25th he died. He was interred in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn."

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