DALLAS, TX.- The Meadows Museum, SMU, presents a focused summer exhibition pairing its recent acquisition Beach at Portici (1874), by Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838–1874), with a loan from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Idle Hours (1894), by William Merritt Chase (1849–1916). At the Beach: Mariano Fortuny y Marsal and William Merritt Chase explores Chase’s admiration of Fortuny, through two key paintings, one by the American artist and one by his Spanish predecessor, displayed together for the first time June 24 through September 23, 2018.

The depiction of leisure time at the beach was popular in late 19th-century painting, and both Fortuny and Chase used beach scenes to showcase their great skill at rendering light. In both paintings, the artists portray their respective families in fashionable white garments lounging near a curving coastline, Fortuny’s in southern Italy and Chase’s on Long Island, New York. The two paintings even share similar compositions—defined by strong diagonals and a balance of land, sky and figures—as well as loose, fluid brushstrokes that capture the effects bright summer sunlight on earth, sea, sky and skin. Even though the artists were separated by time and geography and never actually met, their paintings transcend distance, representing a dialogue that speaks eloquently of a bond between them.

“Chase said of Fortuny, ‘Everything he did was interesting.’ And he was not alone in his admiration for the Spanish painter, who was extremely popular in America at the turn of the century. But while Chase never knew Fortuny the man, he certainly knew Fortuny’s paintings, including Beach at Portici, which Chase would have had ample opportunity to see in America— most notably at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, the year before he painted Idle Hours,” says Amanda W. Dotseth, Meadows/Mellon/Prado Fellow and co-curator of the exhibition with Mark A. Roglán, The Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum.

“Despite their differing career trajectories,” says Roglán, “each artist achieved fame as a cosmopolitan painter. They were celebrated for these canvases, which present painterly beach scenes with scintillating summer light while celebrating the extraordinary beauty to be found in everyday moments with family.”