TitleWilliam Merritt Chase
Artist
Albin Polasek
(1879 - 1965)
Date1915
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 20 3/4 × 13 1/2 × 10 1/4 in.
SignedSigned at right: "Albin Pol sek, 1915".
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, November 6, 1933
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number90-S
Label TextPol sek met Chase while the sculptor was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy and their acquaintance was renewed in New York in 1914. At the time, Pol sek was conducting informal drawing classes in his New York studio and one of his students, Nancy Halvor, brought Chase to an evening session of the class. The great painter had expressed an interest in seeing again the sculptor who had modeled the bust of his friend Francis Davis Millett. Halvor suggested that Pol sek model Chase's bust as well and sittings began in Chase's studio shortly thereafter. The painter agreed to do Pol sek's portrait in exchange but the never-completed work was considered unsatisfactory and eventually destroyed by Chase. Pol sek's biographer recounted several problems that the young and still-developing sculptor had with the modeling of Chase's bust: "When Grafly heard of it he inquired, "How ever did you model his moustache?" Indeed, the task of making this fiercely pointed decoration look at the same time like hair, the softest of material, taxed Albin's ingenuity. Then too, Mr. Chase insisted upon an accurate representation of his neat cravat with its encircling ring. He was especially particular about the ring. He possessed a large and valuable collection of these ornaments and was never seen without one. He was on the whole a very distinguished looking gentleman, and Pol sek strove to embody in the portrait his air of fastidiuos elegance." A cast of the bust was presented to New York University in 1924 as a tribute to Chase.
