American Provincetown Massachusetts Modernist Watercolor Oliver Newberry Chaffee, Jr. Signed., "Provincetown, Graveyard", dated Summer, 1927; 9 1/2 x 12 1/2, 16 1/2 x 18 3/4" framed.
Abstract painter and printmaker Oliver Newberry Chaffee was born in 1881. He studied at the Art Students League in New York City with Charles Hawthorne; at the New York (City) School of Art with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri; the Detroit Fine Arts Academy, Michigan; and the Academie Julian in Paris, France. He was a member of the Provincetown Art Association, Massachusetts, and Society of Independent Artists, New York City.Influenced by the Fauve painters during his stay in Paris, Chaffee was expert in that style, exhibiting three Fauvist landscapes at the 1913 Armory Show in New York City. A contemporary review of the Armory Show complimented Chaffee's expression of "intense sunlight," and likening his paintings to those of Alfred Maurer. Chaffee's work at this time was among the earliest and best manifestations of Fauvism in America.Chaffee was a well-known teacher, associated particularly with the Provincetown Art Association, where he taught, among other media, the white-line method of woodcut espoused by that organization. Chaffee visited St. Augustine, Florida for a time in 1939.Other Chaffee exhibitions include:Detroit Art Institute, Michigan, 1908, 1933, 1946Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, 1912Salon d'Automne, Paris, 1913, 1924Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, 1919, 1928, 1932, 1942Brooklyn Museum, New York City, 1927Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 1933Chaffee also exhibited at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, and Worcester Museum of Art, Massachusetts. Chaffee's work was shown in posthumous exhibitions at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, 1977; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 1986; and Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1991.Chaffee is represented in the Corcoran Gallery of Art; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Provincetown Heritage Museum; Provincetown Art Association and Museum; Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, Cape Cod, Massachusetts; and Kalamazzo Institute of Arts, Michigan.Chaffee appears in the catalog, Provincetown Abstract Painting, 1915-1950, published by the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, from work in the Penny and Elton Yasuna Collection, with an essay by Tony Vevers. Solveiga Rush authored the book, Oliver Newberry Chaffee (1881-1944), published by the Taft Museum of Art, in 1991.Oliver Newberry Chaffee died in 1944.

16.5 x 18.75 x 2 in

10 lb