William Merritt Chase (1849-1916)
Alice Dieudonnée Chase, Shinnecock Hills
inscribed and signed 'To my friend & pupil / Eugene Ullman / Wm. M. Chase' (lower left)
oil on canvas
22 1/4 x 17 7/8 in. (56.5 x 45.4 cm.)
Painted circa 1902.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Eugene Paul Ullman (1877-1953), Paris, gift from the artist, circa 1902.
Private collection, by descent from the above.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1998.

Exhibited
New York and Palm Beach, Florida, Adelson Galleries, Inc., Interiors, Spring 2020, n.p., illustrated.

Literature
R. G. Pisano, C.K. Lane, D. F. Baker, William Merritt Chase: Portraits in Oil, The Complete Catalogue of Known and Documented Work by William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), New Haven, Connecticut, 2006, vol. II, p. 181, no. OP.353, illustrated.
L.B. Hankin, 'William Merritt Chase (1849-1916),' Antiques & Fine Art

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. OP.353.

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

In 1886, William Merritt Chase gave us his famous New York City studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building. Four years later he was asked to form the first summer school of art near Southampton, Long Island. The appointment would include a large teaching studio in what would become known as The Art Village on the western edge of Southampton Village, and a large family summer home located in the hills of Shinnecock several miles west of the village, equal-distant from the Peconic Bay to the north and Shinnecock Bay to the south. The home, designed by Stanford White, wasn't completed in time for the first season's class of 1891, but the following summer the Chase family joined 'Will' and quickly became subjects in his now famous Shinnecock landscapes.

The south facing entrance of the Shinnecock home opened to an expansive two-story living room with stairs to the bedroom on the second floor on one end and a large floor to ceiling stone fireplace on the other end. Over the mantle hung the famous bronze basso relievo by Augustus Saint-Gaudens of William Merritt Chase, a paint brush in one hand, his other hand holding a very large palette (The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York).

Alice Dieudonne was the first-born child of Chase and his wife, Alice, and the most frequent subject of the artist's portraits of his children, starting soon after her birth in 1887, Mother and Child (The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). Throughout the years the portraits of Alice and sundry paintings/pastels in which she was included, totaled over 30 works (many now in museums including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution; Musee d'Orsay, Paris; The Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, New York; The Cleaveland Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco; Cincinnati Art Museum; The Daniel J. Terra Collection and Foundation for American Art, Chicago). The last painting c. 1915 was of Alice Dieudonne (Chase) Sullivan with her young daughter Dorothy 'Bunny' Sullivan Fisher (Private collection). Alice's grandson, Peter S. Fisher, would go on to work as a Hollywood screen writer and eventually as one of the creators who wrote 'Murder She Wrote' for Angela Lansbury.

Alice Dieudonne Chase, Shinnecock Hills, c. 1902, is an extraordinary work in that it is a combination of portrait, interior and landscape. It is also a record of the last year of the Shinnecock summer school of Art, and the family's last summer all together in the house (although in 1906 Chase joined the family after spending the early summer months in London visiting John Singer Sargent and Edwin Austin Abbey, then to Paris before going to the Leyden for a Rembrandt celebration). While a few of the children would return to the house in the following years, the portrait of Alice Dieudonne Chase, Shinnecock Hills, is a remembrance of the last summer the entire family spent together at their beloved Shinnecock home, perhaps reflected in the wistful gaze of Alice. The painting was given by Chase to his student (at the Chase School of Art, New York), friend and later fellow-artist, Eugene Ullman, who assisted Chase at the Shinnecock Summer School of Art. The gift was perhaps prompted by Chase's hope that Ullman would marry Alice Dieudonne. That didn't work out, as Alice would marry Arthur White Sullivan, whose twin brother Francis William Sullivan would later marry Alice's sister Koro Robertine Chase. After Chase died in 1916, various family members would sometimes visit the house for summer weekends – it was not winterized, had no basement as it was built on a series of large diameter tree trunks about 1 ½ feet above ground. At some point in the 1920s, the house was sold, as was the teaching studio in The Art Village. Truly the end of an extraordinary era of late 19th century American art and artists.

On a personal note, for several years Ron Pisano and I had a home in Shinnecock Hills very close to the Chase home where we attended many afternoon gatherings and dinners. In doing so, we went through every room of the house, including the very large attic. In preparation for the major Chase retrospective organized by the Phillips Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Terra Foundation, Elsa Smithgall, Erica Hirshler, Katherine Bourguignon and I (for the last time) spend a memorable afternoon visiting the Shinnecock House. To this day it remains a private residence. The house and grounds are on the New York State and National Register of Historic Places.