PLEIN AIR HERITAGE
Now considered one of America’s greatest plein air painters, William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) struggled to support his family with sales of the interiors, figures, and still lifes that he was best known for during his lifetime. To augment his income, he would abandon his ornately decorated space in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City’s Greenwich Village every summer to paint outdoors with students in parks, gardens, and open fields. In 1891, Jane Ralston Hoyt invited the artist to the Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, where she shared her idea of opening a summer art academy based on the plein air schools then popular in Europe — a strategy devised to promote her own real estate ventures in the area. Thanks in no small part to Chase’s stellar reputation…