Still Life in Copper

After studying with a local portraitist in his native Indianapolis and then at the National Academy of Design in New York, Chase secured enough financial support to study in Munich at the Königliche Akademie. After six years abroad he returned to the United States, but never abandoned the dark rich palette of his German teachers and the traditions of the Old Masters he had come to know. His portraits and landscapes would eventually succumb to the prevailing Impressionist forces, but his still-lifes retained the more somber colors. In fact, he regarded himself as a Realist painter. While teaching at the Art Students' League in New York and at his own Shinnecock Summer School on Long Island, Chase favored painting directly from nature and emphasized technique over subject. Defending his still-life paintings, he once argued, "Subject is not important. Anything can be made attractive."