AFA Autumn 2019

Autumn 90 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com left: William Merritt Chase (1849–1916), Robert Blum, 1888. Oil on canvas, 21⅛ x 17⅛ inches. National Academy of Design, New York; ANA diploma presentation, March 18, 1889 (228-P). Courtesy American Federation of Arts. below: Robert Frederick Blum (1857–1903), Two Idlers, 1888–89. Oil on canvas, 29 x 40 inches. National Academy of Design, New York; NA diploma presentation, March 26, 1864 (108-P). Courtesy American Federation of Arts. Blum and Chase were intimate friends: the two traveled throughout Europe together in the first half of the 1880s, frequently depicted one another, and were elected ANAs in the same year. The Young Orphan (opposite page) likely depicts a model Chase found at the Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum, near his studio in New York City, while Two Idlers pictures the prominent painter William Jacob Baer and his musician wife, Laura Schenk, lounging at their home in Brick Church, New Jersey. Although he is beloved today, many of Chase’s critics perceived an aloofness in his figures—some even going so far as to claim his work “never sounded those notes that come from the depth of the human heart.”  1 The emotionally stirring portrait of Blum forges a deeper connection between the duo’s well-known works.