At the Beach: Mariano Fortuny y Marsal and William Merritt Chase
The painters Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838–1874) and William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) were separated by more than ten years of age, the Atlantic Ocean, and different backgrounds. This focused exhibition, however, highlights a modern subject popular among international circles in the nineteenth century, and one that both painters treated with remarkable skill: people at the beach. Recently acquired by the Meadows Museum, Fortuny’s very last painting Beach at Portici (1874) depicts the artist’s family enjoying leisure time at the beach while residing in Italy. Painted around two decades later, Chase’s canvas Idle Hours (c. 1894)—which is generously on loan from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth—similarly portrays the artist’s family dressed in billowing and fashionable white garments lounging in a lush green landscape near a curving coastline. This is the first time these two works have been displayed together, and together the two paintings represent a single case study that elucidates the larger affinity Chase had for his Spanish predecessor. Chase and Fortuny were truly cosmopolitan painters and the dialogue between Beach at Portici and Idle Hours speaks eloquently to that fact.
Thursday, June 28, 6:00 p.m.
LECTURE
At the Beach: Mariano Fortuny y Marsal and William Merritt Chase
Mark A. Roglán, The Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum
Andrew Walker, Executive Director, Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Join us for this special double lecture examining the creation of Mariano Fortuny y Marsal’s (1883–1874) Beach at Portici (1874) and William Merritt Chase’s (1849–1916) Idle Hours, 1894, on loan from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Many comparisons can be made of these two cosmopolitan painters, Fortuny of Spain and Chase of the United States. The two artists utilized a loose, rapid painting style akin to French Impressionism. Despite his early death, Fortuny established a popular genre of painting costumed figures set in richly ornamented settings. This fashion of painting was assumed by the younger Chase while he was studying abroad in Europe in the 1870s. The two painters turned to more private and personal scenes in their later work, which will be the subject of this special program held in conjunction with the summer installation At the Beach: Mariano Fortuny y Marsal and William Merritt Chase.
Free; reservations required at 214.768.8587
Bob and Jean Smith Auditorium
Carrie Sanger
Marketing & PR Manager
csanger@smu.edu
214.768.1584
