The light of Detroit and Paris
Oliver Newberry Chaffee began his path in Detroit, Michigan, where the early foundations of his training took shape at the Detroit Fine Arts Academy. His hands learned the discipline of form before he moved toward the larger studios of New York. In the city, he sat in the classrooms of the Art Students League under Charles Hawthorne and studied at the New York School of Art with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. These instructors provided a technical base that he would later push toward more abstract territories.
The move to Paris brought a shift in how he saw color. At the Academie Julian, the influence of the Fauve painters became a part of his practice. He began to look at landscapes not as mere records of scenery, but as surfaces for light and pigment. This period of study allowed him to bring a specific European energy back to the American art scene.
The 1913 Armory Show and Fauvist expression
In 1913, Chaffee participated in the Armory Show in New York City. He exhibited three landscapes that leaned into the Fauvist style, a movement characterized by its use of bold, non-naturalistic color. His work from this time was noted for how it captured an intense sense of sunlight. Observers at the time compared his ability to render light to the work of Alfred Maurer.
His paintings often focused on:
- Abstract figure-objects that moved away from strict realism.
- Landscape compositions shaped by heavy, expressive color.
- The interplay of light and shadow through a Fauvist lens.
Later years and affiliations
Chaffee maintained connections to several important artistic circles throughout his life. He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists in New York City and the Provincetown Art Association in Massachusetts. His work as both a painter and a printmaker continued to explore the boundaries between recognizable objects and abstraction.
He spent his final years in Asheville, North Carolina, where he passed away in 1944. The traces of his time in Paris and New York remained visible in the way he handled the weight of color on a canvas.
