William Merritt Chase is one of the most famous of all 19th- century American painters, both as a painter coming out of the Munich or German tradition into modern impressionism and as an incredibly talented teacher who inspired hundreds of students at the Art Students League, his Tenth Street Studio, the Chase School of Art, the Brooklyn Art Association and during summers in Shinnecock, Long Island.
When Twachtman died in 1902, Chase was elected to take his place in the most prestigious group of American impressionists, The Ten American Painters, but by this time, Chase was a founding member of the Society of American Artists (1879), an Associate (1888) and a National Academician (1890) of the National Academy of Design, NYC, the Munich Secession, the National Arts Club, the Lotos Club, the American Water Color Club, Painters in Pastel (founder), National Institute of Arts & Letters, Portrait Painters of America and so forth. He won gold medals for painting excellence from most of the leading art institutions in the U.S. and Europe before he died in New York in 1916.
Chase is represented in many museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Terra Museum of American Art, National Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Rhode Island School of Design, Cincinnati Museum and many leading private and college collections. He is considered one of the most talented of the American impressionists.