William Rockhill Nelson

Artist William Merritt Chase (American, 1849 - 1916)

Date1907

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 60 x 50 1/8 inches (152.4 x 127.32 cm)

Credit LineGift of William Rockhill Nelson

Object number34-316

SignedSigned and dated lower left: Wm M. Chase 1907

InscribedInscribed on verso upper right: W.R. Nelson Esq. / Painted by Wm M. Chase / New York 1907

On View

Not on view

Collections

American Art

Terms

DescriptionPortrait of William Rockhill Nelson seated in a chair which is only slightly indicated. The portrait is almost full length, but is terminated just above the ankles. The person is clothed in a black suit and tie with white shirt and vest. Silver hair across forehead and arms rest on chair arms. Dark brown background.Published References

Published References

"Will of Mrs. Kirkwood," Kansas City Star, 3 March 1926, 1-2;

"The City to See Oak Hall," Kansas City Star, 11 September 1927, 1A;

"Two Characteristic Rooms in Oak Hall-The Great Room from Which the House Took Its Name and the Formal Dining Room," Kansas City Star, 11 September 1927, Want Ad sec., unpaginated;

"New Nelson Art Gallery Opened," Drover's Telegram (Kansas City, Mo.), 11 December 1933, D20;

"Kansas City 'The Heart of America': Kansas City Scioglie le ali Verso un Auvenire Artistico" Il Messaggero (Rome, Italy), 15 December 1933, clipping, Scrapbook, NAMA Archives;

"Liberal with Art," Kansas City Star, 1 January 1936, 8;

Chase Centennial Exhibition Commemorating the Birth of William Merritt Chase November 1, 1849, exh. cat. (Indianapolis: John Herron Art Museum, 1949), unpaginated;

NAMA 1949, 2;

H. J. Haskell, "Random Thoughts," Kansas City Star, 25 June 1950, 24D;

NAMA 1959, 4, 255;

Abraham David Milgrome, "The Art of William Merritt Chase," Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1969, 195;

William L. McCorkle, "Nelson of the Star," Kansas City Star Magazine, 13 September 1970, 9, cover;

Denys Sutton, ed., "Editorial: The Colonel's Gift," Apollo 96 (December 1972), 470;

NAMA 1973, 6, 251;

"Musées et Monuments Historiques: États-Unis," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, supplement to 81 (March 1973), 10;

Clarence W. Simpson, A History of the Founding and First Forty Years of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts (Kansas City, Mo.: University Trustees, W. R. Nelson Trust, 1976), 6;

Patricia Cleary Miller, Westport: Missouri's Port of Many Returns (Kansas City, Mo.: Lowell Press, 1983), 69;

NAMA 1988, 10;

NAMA 1991, 48-49;

Keith Bryant, William Merritt Chase: A Genteel Bohemian (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), 233, 306n32;

NAMA 1993a, 10 (as Portrait of William Rockhill Nelson);

NAMA 1993b, 6, 34n1;

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 18, 60, 186;

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings, 1300-1800 (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in association with University of Washington Press, 1996), 16;

Tim Engle, "Star Magazine's Founding Godmother," Kansas City Star Magazine, 25 July 1999, 26.

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