The Tow Path

One of the leading practitioners and teachers of American Impressionism, William Merritt Chase’s painting The Tow Path lends an entrée into the time he spent with fellow artists as a member of The Tile Club, an association of lively young artists, writers, and musicians. After returning from his study in Europe, primarily in Munich, in 1878, Chase sought out the same artistic comradery he enjoyed abroad and established himself at The Tenth Street Studio Building in New York, where other important American painters such as Frederic Church and Winslow Homer had previously worked. As a member of The Tile Club, Chase participated in several of the club’s summer excursions in a canal boat outfitted as a floating studio up the Hudson River, to the Erie Canal, to Lake Champlain, and around Long Island. On these trips, the artists would set up their easels along canal tow paths to sketch the view to the delight of the curious onlookers.