Having mastered the deft brushwork taught at the Munich Royal Academy, William Merritt Chase brought new vitality to American portraiture following his return from Germany in 1878. Born in Williamsburg (now Nineveh), Indiana, Chase grew up in Indianapolis, where he first studied art under local painter Barton S. Hays (1826-1914). Hays and another resident artist, Jacob Cox (1810-1892), encouraged Chase to pursue further study, and in 1869 he enrolled in the school of the National Academy of Design in New York City. By 1872 Chase was in Munich, where his teachers included Alexander von Wagner (1838-1919) and the influential history painter Karl von Piloty (1826-1886).

A portrait commission from von Piloty established Chase as a rising star in the international art community, and on his return to America, he took a position at the newly formed Art Students League of New York. Teaching became a central component of Chase's career, and in addition to serving many years at the Art Students League and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he founded and was head instructor of the Shinnecock Summer School of Art and the Chase (later the New York) School of Art. His dashing technique and charismatic personality affected many younger artists and did much to pave the way for Impressionism and other newer modes. Chase died in New York City in 1916.

Although he painted still lifes and landscapes as well, Chase earned much of his fame through portraiture. When Portrait of Master Otis Barton and His Grandfather was completed in 1903, Chase was considered second only to John Singer Sargent (q.v.) as America's leading portraitist. Here the young Otis Barton poses with his grandfather, also named Otis Barton. The elder Barton is seated in an easy chair, a newspaper resting on one knee. His right arm encircles his four-year-old grandson, who stands at his side. Both regard the viewer with composed expressions, seemingly conscious of the dignity of the pose. Yet telltale signs of affection, particularly the intertwined hands at left, suggest the natural bond between the old man and the boy.

The success of Chase's portrait lies in the artist's ability to interweave a progressive painting style with the conventions of formal portraiture. Chase's dark palette and loose brushwork reflect his training in Munich, where academicians reformulated the work of seventeenth-century artists such as Frans Hals (c. 1582-1666) and Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) to create a bold new idiom that stood in marked contrast to the frosty perfection of French Salon painting. At the same time, the French Realist Edouard Manet (1832-1883) also adopted the warm blacks and browns of Velázquez, associating the Spanish artist's palette with his own unconventional approach to composing his subjects. Chase, who admired Manet, developed a milder form of the French artist's Realism, tailoring it to the desires of clients who expected something that was "modern" without being radical. Although Portrait of Master Otis Barton and His Grandfather is set in an indeterminate studio environment and is clearly a posed composition, details such as the scattered magazines on the floor in the lower left add a note of authenticity that subtly counterbalances the artificiality inherent in Chase's formal presentation.

The elder Otis Barton was an important figure in the commercial life of Manchester, New Hampshire, during the second half of the nineteenth century. Born in Mercer, Maine, in 1825, he grew up on his parents' farm before taking a position as a clerk in a local store. After less than a year he moved to Massachusetts, living first in Worcester and then in Springfield. He afterward moved to Manchester, and with his savings of $100, he bought out a store and its contents. Reopened in 1850 as Barton and Company, the business flourished and became one of the city's premier dry goods establishments. Barton was much respected as an honest and diligent businessman and was later appointed director of the Amoskeag National Bank and trustee of the Amoskeag Savings Bank. He also served as president of the First Baptist Church and was a member of the Manchester City Council. He remained head of Barton and Company until his retirement in 1904 and died in Manchester in 1913. The business that bore his name burned a year later but was rebuilt, closing finally in 1928.

The younger Otis Barton was the son of Frederick O. Barton, one of the two children born following the marriage of Otis and Sarah Tuck Barton in 1851. It was he who presented the painting to the Currier Museum of Art in 1981.

VSD

REFERENCES

Carolyn Carr. "Double Take: Master Otis Barton and His Grandfather by William Merritt Chase." Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin, 1984, pp. 2-10.

Ronald G. Pisano. A Leading Spirit in American Art: William Merritt Chase 1849-1916. Ex. cat. Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, 1983.