Marian Emma Chase

Life

Chase was born on 18 April 1844 in Fitzroy Square in London to John and his second wife, Georgiana Ann Chase (born Harris). His first wife, Mary Ann Rix, had been a water colour artist, had died in 1840. Chase's father, John Chase, was an established artist who had been trained in part by John Constable.

She went to school in Richmond and she was taught life drawing by Margaret Gillies. Chase worked mostly in England and although she did exhibit at other galleries she sent the vast majority of her water colours to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.

In early life she devoted a good deal of time to illuminating, but it was as a painter in water-colour of flowers, fruit, and still-life that she made her mark, by virtue of her truthful colouring and delicate treatment. She painted in the same medium interiors, a few landscapes, and, towards the close of her life, studies of flower-gardens; in her figure subjects she was less successful. She also occasionally worked in oil. She exhibited from 1866 to 1905 at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute, the Dudley Gallery, the Grosvenor Gallery, the International Exhibition of 1871 and various provincial, colonial, and foreign exhibitions. On 22 March 1875, she was elected an associate of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours (now the Royal Institute), and in 1879 she became a full member. In 1888, the Royal Botanical Society awarded her a silver medal.

Chase died in 1905 after a heart operation. She is buried in St. Pancras Cemetery.

Her work is in the Leicester Galleries, Aberdeen Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.