Who was Georgia O’Keeffe’s teacher at the Art Students League who founded the Chase School?

William Merritt Chase was Georgia O’Keeffe’s teacher at the Art Students League and the founder of the Chase School. Chase was an influential American Impressionist painter and an important educator whose students included many later prominent artists.

O’Keeffe studied with Chase in New York after enrolling at the League in 1907. His instruction emphasized careful observation, composition, and the traditions of still-life and figure painting. O’Keeffe won a prize in one of his classes, but her mature style eventually departed sharply from Chase’s polished academic and Impressionist approach.

Chase established the Chase School of Art in New York in 1896. It later became part of the New York School of Art, now associated with Parsons School of Design. A common mix-up is to identify Alfred Stieglitz as O’Keeffe’s teacher; Stieglitz exhibited and promoted her work and became her husband, but he was not her Art Students League instructor.