4x5 transparency scanned on Hasselblad Flextight X1 by Ed Pollard-2010.

Susan Watkins

Artist William Merritt Chase (American, 1849-1916)

CultureAmerican

Dateca. 1914

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions75 × 52 in. (190.5 × 132.1 cm)
Overall, Frame: 86 × 63 × 5 in. (218.4 × 160 × 12.7 cm)

InscribedSigned lower left: Wm. M. Chase

Credit LineBequest of Goldsborough Serpell

Object number46.76.159

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 218

DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting done in memory of Susan Watkins a year after she died. She was also a painter and the room she sits in suggests that this was her studio. There is a large painting behind her, another in a gilt frame on her left. In her hands she holds a print from one of her own famous engravings. Behind her and in the center of the canvas is a jar of paint brushes. The brushwork for this portrait is loose and soft. She is the central focus, formally dressed in a long white gown with a white coat over her shoulders. Her dark brown hair has been done up on her head and pulled away from her face.

Label TextWilliam Merritt Chase American, 1849–1916 Susan Watkins, ca. 1914 Oil on canvas Shortly after the premature death of the painter Susan Watkins, William Merritt Chase created this monumental portrait as a memorial to his friend and former student. Though Watkins wears an elegant evening gown, the studio setting, with its easel and pot of paintbrushes, reveals her profession. Chase regarded Watkins as one of the best woman painters of their day, and the scale and sophistication of this portrait testify to his respect for her life and art. Bequest of Goldsborough Serpell 46.76.159 ProvenanceWilliam Merritt Chase, kin to Susan Watkins by marriage, painted this portrait of her posthumously; Bequest of Goldsborough Serpell to the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1946; Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences transferred to the Chrysler Museum, 1971. Exhibition History"Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va., March 1 - July 4, 1976. "The Gentle Modernist: The Art of Susan Watkins," Waitzer Community Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., May 15, 2002 - March 2003. "Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. "Women of the Chrysler: a 400-Year Celebration of the Arts," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., March 24 - July 18, 2010. "Americans in Florence," Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy, March 2 - July 15, 2012.Published ReferencesChrysler Museum _Bulletin_ 10, no. 4 (May 1960): not paged. Dennis R. Anderson, _Three Hundred Years of American Art in the Chrysler Museum_, exh. cat., Norfolk, Va., 1975, 153. Joyce M. Szabo, _Between Continents and Centuries: Susan Watkins, an American Artist Rediscovered_, exhib. brochure, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., 1985. Joyce M. Szabo, "Susan Watkins: Quiet Interiors And Complex Personalities," _Woman's Art Journal_ 20, no. 2 (November 1999): 5. Jefferson C. Harrison, "The Art of Susan Watkins, 1875-1913," _American Art Review_ 15, no. 1 (January/February 2003): 149. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 130, no. 80. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6