Early American abstract painting by New York artist Charles Chapman depicting a mermaid by a pool of water. This modernist watercolor is housed in a good period frame and bears an exhibition label from Grand Central Modern Gallery in New York City.
Title: ‘Mermaids Pool’
Date: c.1920
Medium: Mixed media using watercolor and oil paints on paper
Measurements: 8 inches x 10.25 inches sight size, and 15.5 inches x 17.5 inches x 1.75 inches overall including frame.
Notes: Bears a label from Grand Central Moderns Gallery, New York. Housed in a quality vintage carved frame, (likely a Newcomb-Macklin frame).

About the artist: Charles Shepard Chapman, (1879-1962), was born in New York and lived and worked on the East Coast of the Untied States. Chapman studied at the Pratt Institute in New York, with William Merritt Chase at Chase’s School of Art, and the Arts Students League. Around 1901 Chapman became friends with Frederic Remington. Remington was a good friend and a great influence on Chapman. Chapman made many trips to Canada and the American west, a place that fascinated him. On his trips he would stay for months, in Canada in a logging camp and at least once he stayed on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Chapman later created a massive mural for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Charles Chapman’s works are held by many museums around the country including the Met, the Smithsonian, and National Academy of Design. As a participant in the Academy’s annual exhibitions Chapman was awarded the Saltus Medal for Merit in 1917 and 1940, the Andrew Carnegie Prize in 1921 and 1938, and a Benjamin Altman Prize in 1924. As a modernist Chapman created a painting style in which he added an abstracted background to his academic subjects. Is this process Chapman would float oils on water then place a paper atop of the fluids. The result of this technic he titled ‘Water-oils’. These works would exhibited at Grand Central Moderns in New York.

The artwork is in good condition. The vintage frame shows much wear including scuffs and nicks, and loss to golf leafing in areas.