Landscape, near Coney Island

Artist William Merritt Chase American, 1849 - 1916

Dateca. 1886

MediumOil on panel

DimensionsPanel: 8 1/8 × 12 5/8 in. (20.6 × 32.1 cm)
Frame Dimensions: 11 3/16 x 15 1/2 x 2 5/8 in. (28.4 x 39.4 x 6.7 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of Mary H. Beeman to the Pruyn Family Collection

Object number1995.12.7

On View

Not on view

Collections

American Paintings & Sculpture

SignedSigned lower left: "Wm M Chase"

MarkingsSticker on reverse: "No. 500". Label on reverse: "E&A Milch, Inc,/108 West 57th St./NEW YORK/FINE FRAMING".

DescriptionWilliam Merritt Chase’s importance as an artist in early twentieth-century America was not just due to his skill as a portraitist and his modern, French-influenced style, but also to his significance as an instructor. “Landscape, Near Coney Island” exemplifies the airy freshness and brilliant lighting so characteristic of his painting style. Taking his cues from the Impressionists and James McNeill Whistler, whom he visited in London in 1885, he paints en plein air, that is, outdoors rather than sketching outside and returning to paint in his studio. He established and taught at the Shinnecock Hills Summer Art School (on Long Island, New York City) from 1891 to 1902, the first en-plein-air school in the nation, and went on to teach at multiple other art schools, including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1896 to 1909). A letter from 1891 clarifies his painting and teaching approach: he wants “all the light I can get,” and so carried no umbrella with his outside stool and portable painting materials. He was looking for the “effects of light and shade” in the landscape. Painting on small wooden panels, as used for The Hyde’s painting, made working outdoors easier.

“Landscape, Near Coney Island” demonstrates the effects of his painting approach: a bright, well-lit landscape, focused on the natural world as much as on the human figures, all of it painted in loose, open brushstrokes. Two women, one in a white dress and silhouetted against the dark green bushes, are picking berries or perhaps rose hips. On the distant horizon above and to the right of them, Chase has included the famous Elephant Hotel—popularly called the “Elephant Colossus”—a hotel twelve stories tall with thirty-four rooms, in the shape of an elephant. Built by the architect James Lafferty in 1884, it was part of the Coney Island Amusement Park in Brooklyn, and is visible here against the light blue sky. To New Yorkers, “seeing the Elephant” meant going to Coney Island. Further to the east (our right) rises the 300-foot Iron Tower, a structure—built with steam elevators to carry visitors up for panoramic views—that was moved from the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia here to Brighton.

Chase contrasts the quiet, idyllic landscape of the foreground with the noise and flashing lights of the amusement park in the background, but the natural world of sand dunes and sea grasses dominates. Chase produced multiple landscape views of this part of New York, often using “Coney Island” or “Brighton Beach” as part of their titles, thus enticing tired New Yorkers to purchase an escape from the urban world.

Above text by Penny Howell Jolly, Professor Emerita of Art History, Skidmore College, July 2026

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Shoreline landscape with two figures in the left mid-ground, one wearing a white dress and hat. Beach grass and low bushes, possibly beach roses, in the fore- and mid-ground. The figures appear to be picking something from the bushes, possibly rose hips for jam. In the distance, above the head of the figure in white are two structures that were part of the Coney Island attractions, One, in the form of an elephant, was the Elephant Hotel and the other is the Iron Tower.

Text from 2013Exhibition History"William Merritt Chase: Modern American Landscapes, 1886-1890," organized by the Brooklyn Museum of Art; shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Dec. 17, 2000 - March 11, 2001.

"Views of New York: Selections from the Permanent Collection," Wood Gallery, January 13 - March 31, 2002, The Hyde Collection.

"Family Matters: American Impressionism and Realism," Hoopes Gallery, The Hyde Collection, April 27 - July 27, 2003.

"A Glens Falls Legacy: The Pruyn Family; "A Shared Life: Selections from the Pruyn Family Collection", Charles R. Wood Gallery, The Hyde Collection, June 8 - Aug. 24, 2008.

"50 at 50: Five Decades of Collecting at the Hyde". Wood Gallery, Education Wing, Hyde House, The Hyde Collection. Glens Falls, January 16, 2013 -April 14, 2013.

"Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008" Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, January 31, 2015 - May 31, 2015; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA, July 11, 2015 - October 18, 2015, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, November 20, 2015 - March 12, 2016, McNay Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX, May 11, 2016- September 11, 2016.Provenanceby 1932, New York, NY, Milch Galleries,
Glens Falls, NY, Nell P. Cunningham
1962, Queensbury, NY, Mary Hoopes Beeman (by inheritance)
1995, Glens Falls, NY, The Hyde Collection Trust (by bequest)