Susan Brown Chase (1868–1948) was an American painter.

Biography

Born in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, Chase had moved to

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

by 1890, and would spend the majority of her life in that town. She studied art under Edmund C. Messer,

Bertha E. Perrie Bertha Eversfield Perrie (June 20, 1868 – September 16, 1921) was an American painter. She has been described as "about the only famous Washington artist who was actually born in D.C." Biography Born in Washington, D.C., Perrie was interested ...

William Henry Holmes William Henry Holmes (December 1, 1846 – April 20, 1933), known as W. H. Holmes, was an American explorer, anthropologist, archaeologist, artist, scientific illustrator, cartographer, mountain climber, geologist and museum curator and direc ...

Henry B. Snell Henry Bayley Snell (September 29, 1858 – January 17, 1943) was an American Impressionist painter and educator. Snell's paintings are in museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Albright–Knox Art Galle ...

, William Lester Stevens, and

George Pearse Ennis George Pearse Ennis (July 21, 1884 – August 1936) was an American artist. He is known for his watercolors and for the stained glass window he designed for Washington Hall, the cadet mess hall at West Point. Life Ennis studied at Washington Un ...

, and attended classes at the Chester Springs Summer School. Long active in the arts community in Washington, she was a charter member of the

Arts Club of Washington The Arts Club of Washington is a private club to promote the Arts in Washington, D.C. Founded by Bertha Noyes in May 1916, its first president was Henry Kirke Bush-Brown; Mathilde Mueden Leisenring was among its original members, as were Susa ...

; other organizations to which she belonged included the Washington Water Color Club, the

Society of Washington Artists The Society of Washington Artists was established in 1890 in Washington, D.C. The Society was organized by the ''Art Students League of Washington''. The Society's first exhibit was in 1891, held at the Woodward & Lothrop building. Within a few ...

, the

American Watercolor Society The American Watercolor Society, founded in 1866, is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States. Qualifications AWS judges the work of a painter before granting admission to the soc ...

, and the

National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors The National Association of Women Artists, Inc. (NAWA) is a United States organization, founded in 1889 to gain recognition for professional women fine artists in an era when that field was strongly male-oriented. It sponsors exhibitions, awards ...

. With these groups she exhibited at such venues as the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

, the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, and the

Witte Museum The Witte Museum was established in 1926 and is located in Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, Texas. It is dedicated to telling the stories of Texas, from prehistory to the present. The permanent collection features historic artifacts and photograp ...

. She was one of a small number of women allowed to show work with the Landscape Club of Washington, and she participated in the Greater Washington Independent Exhibition of 1935. For a number of years she taught at the Abbott School of Fine and Commercial Art. Chase received an honorable mention for her work at the Women's National Exhibition in St. Louis, and in 1917 she was awarded a medal from the Washington Water Color Club, on whose board she served and whose president she once was. Later in life she went to live with a daughter in

Clearwater Clearwater or Clear Water may refer to: Places Canada * Clear Water Academy, a private Catholic school located in Calgary, Alberta * Clearwater (provincial electoral district), a former provincial electoral district in Alberta * Clearwater, Briti ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, in which town she died. She was buried at

Arlington National Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries run by the United States Army. Nearly 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington, Virginia. There are about 30 funerals conducted on weekdays and 7 held on Sa ...

next to her husband, Volney Ogle Chase, with whom she had had two children; the grave marker gives her date of birth as 1864.

Work

Chase produced mainly watercolors during her career, many of them depicting scenes from around Washington, D.C. She also worked in

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache h ...

. One of her watercolors, an ''Interior'' from c. 1933–1943, is currently owned by the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, to which it was transferred by the

General Services Administration The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. gover ...

from the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

. Eleven works, mostly watercolors and drawings, are held by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

Gallery

Susan Brown Chase - C&O Canal, Georgetown DC.jpg, ''C&O Canal, Georgetown DC'', 1916 Susan Brown Chase - Pa. Ave bet. 22 & 23 Washington DC.jpg, ''Pennsylvania Avenue between 22 and 23rd Street Washington DC'', 1920

References

External links

*
images of Chase's work
on Invaluable {{DEFAULTSORT:Chase, Susan Brown 1868 births 1948 deaths American women painters American watercolorists Women watercolorists 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women artists Artists from St. Louis Painters from Missouri Painters from Washington, D.C. Burials at Arlington National Cemetery People from Clearwater, Florida