The son of a German wood carver and architectural sculptor, Gari Melchers studied under Karl von Gebhardt and Peter Janssen at the Dusseldorf Royal Art Academy in 1877. Four years later, when he continued at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts, with Gustave Boulanger and Jules Joseph Lefebvre, he had a firm grasp of drawing and modeling. Melchers first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1882.
By the end of 1884, the artist had established a studio at Egmond-aan-Zee, a Dutch village on the coast of the North Sea. It was at Egmond that Melchers worked for the next thirty years. Along with other artists including George Hitchcock and Cecil Jay, Melchers painted scenes of local peasant life. He inscribed his artistic motto "Waar en Klaar," true and clear, over the door of his Dutch studio.
Although Melchers spent many years abroad, he was recognized in this country as a leading figure painter. He executed mural decorations for the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, as well as for the Library of Congress in 1896. Following his marriage to his student, the painter Corinne Lawton Mackall, in 1903, Melchers began painting intimate domestic interiors. Portraits also entered his oeuvre during this time, and in 1908 he was commissioned to paint full-length portraits for the Rhode Island State Capitol.
At the invitation of the grand duke of Saxe-Weinmar, Melchers taught painting at the Weimar Academy from 1909 to 1914. He returned to the United States in 1914, following the outbreak of World War I. Although the artist settled permanently at his country house, Belmont, in Falmouth, Virginia, he maintained a New York studio and traveled to execute commissions. During the twenties, Melchers painted murals for the Detroit Public Library and the State House in Jefferson City, Missouri. He was president of the New Society of Artists from 1920 to 1928, and in 1923 was chairman of the federal commission that established the National Gallery of Art (presently the National Museum of American Art). Melchers died at his home, Belmont. The residence is now a memorial museum, housing a large body of his work.
Melchers' original diploma presentation was a gouache sketch, Study for War. It was accepted by the Academy on May 17, 1907, "with the understanding that Mr. Melchers would be allowed to replace it with work which he would consider more representative at a later date" (CM, May 17, 1907). At the Academy's request for a "more representative work" (CM, March 4, 1935), Mrs. Melchers presented this study to the collection after the artist's death. (See Walter MacEwen).
