Saul Chase (b. 1945)

8. LIRR Entrance in LIC, 1979, serigraph on paper, signed and dated lower right, edition “86/175” inscribed lower left, titled bottom center, 24 x 18 (image), 35 x 25 inches (sheet), collection (other example): Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (acquired in 1982)

$1,250

Saul Chase is a painter and printmaker who is best known for Neo Immaculate images of his native New York City. Chase grew up in the Bronx and discovered his passion for painting at a young age. He earned a BA in Fine Arts from City College of New York (CCNY), and later earned an MS in Art Education from City University of New York (CUNY). After graduating, Chase taught oil and watercolor painting classes to students at CCNY and high school students in the South Bronx.

In 1968, Chase first began exhibiting at the ACA Galleries in New York City, where he had a series of sold out and well acclaimed solo shows. In 1970, Chase moved his home and studio to SoHo. Soon after, in 1972, a Chase painting was exhibited as part of the Sara Roby Collection—a traveling exhibition that showcased modern American Realism and Surrealism. Other artists in the exhibition included Paul Cadmus, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Edward Hopper, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Charles Sheeler. The Brooklyn Museum acquired Chase’s painting Hayle Avenue in 1972. During this period, Chase also exhibited at the Butler Institute of American Art. In the mid-1970s, Chase joined the Andrew Crispo Gallery and in 1978, his work was included in Cityscape 78 at the Oklahoma Art Center, alongside Georgia O’Keefe, John Sloan, Alex Katz, and others. In total, Chase produced approximately eighty acrylic Neo Immaculate paintings of New York between 1968 and 1980.

In the late 1970s, Chase began creating a series of silkscreen prints of New York scenes which garnered widespread recognition. The Cleveland Museum of Art acquired Goya in 1977 around the time of its creation. In 1982, Chase’s Brighton Local and LIRR Entrance in LIC entered the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum, and three years later, an acrylic on canvas Two Forty-Seven PM was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 1981, Chase moved from his SoHo home and studio, fifty miles north of New York City where he continues to live and work.

Through the early 21st century, Chase continued to exhibit in New York City, while his art entered additional museum collections. In 2009, Gulf Station and Goya entered the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More recently in 2020, ACA Galleries included Chase’s screenprints in their show: “Track Work: 100 years of New York’s Subway” and in 2024, ACA Galleries again included Chase in their exhibition “Summer in the City.” 

Chase’s work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Cleveland Museum of Art.