Education:
Art Students League, with Hawthorne
New York School of Art, with Henri and Chase
Detroit Fine Arts Academy
Academie Julian
Exhibitions:
Detroit Art Institute, 1908, 1933, 1946
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, 1912
Armory Show, 1913
Salon d’Automne, Paris, 1913, 1924
Art Institute of Chicago, 1919, 1928, 1932, 1942
Provincetown Art Association and Museum
Brooklyn Museum, 1927
Museum of Modern Art, 1933
Worcester Museum of Art
Everson Museum of Art, 1977
Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1986
Taft Museum, 1991
Member:
Society of Independent Artists
Provincetown Art Association
Collections:
Smithsonian Institution
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Provincetown Art Association and Museum
Provincetown Heritage Museum
Commentary:
Oliver Chaffee was one of the most important and influential early modern painters
and teachers in the art colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Chaffee’s early work was strongly influenced by his training in New York with Robert Henri, as well as his training in Paris at the Academie Julian, where he was undoubtedly familiar with the contemporary Fauvist work of Matisse and Derain. Chaffee’s work in the teens represents some of the earliest and most accomplished “Fauvist” work done in the United States.
Three of Chaffee’s canvases were included in the all-important Armory Show of 1913 in New York. All three were Fauvist landscapes. His work was well received in the company of works by Matisse, Picasso, Hartley, Marin, and Maurer. One critic’s review of the show compared Chaffee’s work with that of Maurer, and praised the “effect of intense sunlight” in his work.
© ACME Fine Art
And Design
38 Newbury Street Boston
Massachusetts 02116
telephone 617.585.9551 fax 617.585.9552
email info@acmefineart.com