William Merritt Chase (1849-1916)
Untitled (Nude Resting in a Chair)
signed 'Chase' (center right)
pastel on paper mounted on canvas
29 x 24 1/8 in. (73.7 x 61.3 cm.)
Executed circa 1888.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Sale, Christie's, New York, May 23, 1990, lot 128. (as Repose)
Private collection, Las Vegas, acquired at the above sale.
Sale, Heritage, Dallas, November 3, 2017, lot 69109, sold by the above.
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale.

Exhibited
Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection, William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master, June 4-Septmeber 11, 2016, pp. 137, 219, plate 41, illustrated, and elsewhere.

Literature
R. Pisano, D.F. Baker, William Merritt Chase: The Paintings in Pastel, Monotypes, Painted Tiles and Ceramic Plates, Watercolors and Prints, New Haven, Connecticut, 2006, vol. 1, pp. 19, 144, no. P.44, illustrated.

The present work is included in Ronald G. Pisano's The Completed Catalogue of Known and Documented Work by William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) as no. P.44.

We wish to thank Mr. D. Frederick Baker for providing the following essay.

Starting in the mid-nineteenth century the exchange of information between American artists and European artists became somewhat commonplace. The epicenter of the art world was Paris, and the Parisian based artists clearly dominated the continued search for new methods of 'art-making,' one important medium being pastel. During the Renaissance it had been used to help enliven works in oil, Francios Millet was becoming known for his pastels and shortly after Manet started to use the medium, also prompting Degas to draw pastel landscapes c. 1869. From this beginning the use of pastel was then quickly taken up by fellow artists and art students, and Degas would go on to create a very large body of extraordinary work in pastel.

Chase pointedly did not attend art school in Paris; instead he enrolled in the Munich Royal Academy in 1872, completing his studies and returning to New York in 1878. But it was clear that he and his fellow artists were aware of the French art scene and specifically a growing interest in pastels. Within a few years, Chase and his good friend Robert Blum, were making plans to establish a special organization devoted to the exhibition of pastels, and these plans were put in place for the first of what would turn out to be four exhibitions of the 'Society of Painters in Pastel' – this title helped to distance the practice from drawing, similar to the French description, peintre en pastel and the German's pastellmahler.

On the run up to the first exhibition, a few of Chase's compatriot artist friends chided him for not ever painting the female nude – perhaps because drawing academic nudes was not on the curriculum of the Royal Munich Academy. It was a challenge that Chase addressed by completing in one year nine female pastel nudes of what appears to be the same model. The first exhibited female nude pastel (owned by the famous collector of American art, Thomas B. Clark) was in the 'New York Athletic Club, 2nd Annual Loan Exhibition from the Member's Collections, February 1888'– generating rave reviews.
Another was included in the society's third exhibition of the society of, 'Half Nude Figure/Study of Flesh Color and Gold' (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Margaret and Raymond Horowitz Collection). It was lent by the Horowitz's to the White House during the Carter administration. When asked by a reporter if the White House was burning down, which painting would he save, the President answered 'The Nude of a Woman by William Merritt Chase.' This work joins two other Chase 1888 female nude pastels in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.

An essay by Marjorie Shelley (Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Chase of the Paper Conservation Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) included in the Vol. I of Ronald G. Pisano's The Complete Catalogue of Known and Documented Work of William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), is a brilliant in-depth examination of Chase's extraordinary 106 works done in pastel. Nude Resting in a Chair is the largest of the nine 1888 female nude pastels. It is also the most unique in terms of pose and background color. Marjorie in discussing these aspects, notes 'As is typical for pastel, Chase's supports are colored, his tending to be dark beige or a warm gray...Chase used these papers for works in which extensive areas were left exposed (as in Nude Resting in a Chair and Seated Woman in Yellow Striped Gown...)'
Arguably, Marjorie's thorough study of Chase pastels, is the definitive work on the subject. She concludes this essay:
Art for art's sake was preeminent and in this regard he bridged practices of the nineteenth century and those of the twentieth. For him (Chase) [quoting F. Hopkinson Smith and Edward Straham, A Book of the Title Club, 1886] 'the only poetry in art [was] the way the artist applies his pigment to the canvas, and it was this dictum he applied to his work in dry color.'

The Introduction to Volume I of the catalog concludes:
'Without question, Chase must now be recognized as the premier American painter in pastel working in the late nineteenth century. The variety of his work and sheer audacity in using the medium were unmatched by any other American artist of his generation.'