Doris Totten Chase

{{Infobox artist

| name = Doris Totten Chase

| image = Portrait_Doris_Totten_Chase.jpg

| imagesize =

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| birth_name = Doris Mae Totten

| birth_date = {{birth date|1923|4|29|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Seattle, Washington{{cite web|title=Doris Tottle Chase|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/seattletimes/obituary.aspx?n=doris-totten-chase&pid=121810592|website=Seattle Times|publisher=Legacy.com|accessdate=25 May 2017}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|2008|12|13|1923|4|29|mf=y}}{{cite web |last1=HACKETT |first1=REGINA |title=Doris Chase, 1923–2008: Artist's work part of Seattle landscape |url=http://www.seattlepi.com/visualart/393305_chaseobit23.html |website=seattlepi.com |date=23 December 2008}}

| death_place = Seattle, Washington

| nationality = American

| education =

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| spouse = {{marriage|Elmo Chase
|1943|1971}}

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}}

Doris Totten Chase (29 April 1923 – 13 December 2008) was an American painter, teacher, and sculptor. She was a member of the Northwest School. Chase had a career as a painter and sculptor before moving to New York, where she made video art.

Early years

Chase was born Doris Mae Totten and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1941. From 1941 to 1943 she studied architecture at the University of Washington{{cite web |title=Doris Chase Collection Finding Aid-1-THE DORIS CHASE COLLECTION |url=https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/learn/filmstudycenter/Doris_Chase_Finding_Aid_MoMA.pdf |website=moma.org/}} before dropping out of college in 1943 to marry Elmo Chase, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

Art career

To support her family, which had grown to two children, Chase taught painting and design at Edison Technical School. Chase was accepted into Women Painters of Washington in 1951. She remained a member until the mid-1960s.{{cite web |url=http://www.womenpainters.com/ABOUT/About.htm |title=Women Painters of Washington – About Us |website=www.womenpainters.com |access-date=13 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929074917/http://www.womenpainters.com/ABOUT/About.htm |archive-date=29 September 2007 |url-status=dead}}

File:Doris Totten Chase.jpg]]

An early steel sculpture, the {{convert|4.6|m|ft|abbr=on}} tall Changing Form, was commissioned for Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill, in 1971.{{cite web |last1=Pothast |first1=Emily |title=Experimental Artist Doris Totten Chase Gets Her First-Ever Retrospective |url=https://www.thestranger.com/visual-art/2017/08/09/25337041/experimental-artist-doris-totten-chase-gets-her-first-ever-retrospective |website=The Stranger |language=en}}

In 1972 she moved to New York.{{cite web |last1=Nguyen |first1=Minh |title=The Nascent Feminism of Doris Totten Chase |url=https://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/the-nascent-feminism-of-doris-totten-chase/ |website=Seattle Weekly |date=20 September 2017}} She began creating video art, using computer imaging when video art was new. Chase was encouraged by the video artist, Nam June Paik, to explore video art{{cite web|title=The Doris Chase collection|url=https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared//pdfs/docs/learn/filmstudycenter/Doris_Chase_Finding_Aid_MoMA.pdf|website=The Museum of Modern Art|publisher=MOMA-Department of Film The Celeste Bartos International Film Study Center|accessdate=8 July 2015|page=2}} and during 1973 to 1974, she participated in the Experimental Television Center’s Residency Program.{{cite web|title=ETC History 1973-75|url=https://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/etc-history-1973-75|publisher=Experimental Television Center Ltd.|accessdate=2023-05-13}}Doris Chase's artworks can be found in the [http://hdl.handle.net/1813.001/8946249 Experimental Television Center Archive], in the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University Library

She began by integrating her sculptures with interactive dancers, using special effects to create dreamlike work. Victor Ancona said of Chase's dance videos, "Watching her tapes gave me the feeling of being transported to an enchanted, phosphorescent environment unceasingly in flux, a voyage I will long remember".Victor Ancona, Videography 3, no. 6 (June 1978), p. 59

Chase's most widely shown work is a series of 30-minute video dramas regarding older women's autonomy, titled By Herself. Table for One (1985), stars Geraldine Page in a voice-over monologue of a woman uneasy about dining alone, followed by Dear Papa (1986), starring Anne Jackson and her daughter Roberta Wallach. The third video was A Dancer (1987). Still Frame (1988) featured Priscilla Pointer and Robert Symonds. Sophie (1989) featured Joan Plowright as a woman who has just left her philandering husband to become "Sophie, reader of French tarot cards". The first two videos were presented at the Berlin and London Film Festivals in 1985 and 1986. Dear Papa won First Prize at Paris' 1986 Women's International Film Festival.

Later years

In 1993, Chase produced a video documentary about her home, the Chelsea Hotel. The Chelsea Hotel was originally conceived as New York's first major cooperative apartment house, owned by a consortium of wealthy families in 1883, becoming a hotel in 1905. Chase's video paid tribute to the building's 110th anniversary, and those who have called it home.{{cite web |title=Chase, Doris Totten (1923–2008) |url=http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5330 |website=www.historylink.org}} In 1999, her four-piece bronze sculpture Moon Gates, 17 feet high, was installed at Seattle Center.{{cite web |last1=HACKETT |first1=REGINA |title=Doris Chase, 1923–2008: Artist's work part of Seattle landscape |url=https://www.seattlepi.com/ae/article/Doris-Chase-1923-2008-Artist-s-work-part-of-1295606.php |website=seattlepi.com |date=23 December 2008}} The Seattle Art Museum has only one Chase work in its collection: a 1950s oil painting. Documents relating to the production of her video works are held in The Celeste Bartos International Film Study Center at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

She died in 2008 from a combination of Alzheimer's disease and a series of strokes.

Collections

Seattle Art Museum{{cite web |title=Doris Chase Collection |url=http://art.seattleartmuseum.org/objects/31759/doris-chase-collection?ctx=4930b60a-bc50-41b5-8335-365851a80d24&idx=0 |website=art.seattleartmuseum.org |language=en}}
Smithsonian American Art Museum{{cite web |title=Doris Chase {{!}} Smithsonian American Art Museum |url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/doris-chase-837 |website=americanart.si.edu}}
Henry Art Gallery, Seattle{{cite web |title=Henry Art Gallery |url=https://collections.henryart.org/detail.php?term=circles+II&module=objects&type=keyword&sortby=maker&sortdir=asc&x=0&y=0&kv=30595&record=0&module=objects |website=collections.henryart.org}}

Filmography

=Director=

Glass Curtain (1990) (V)
Sophie (1990)
A Dancer (1988) (TV)
Still Frame (1988)
Dear Papa (1986)

Doris Totten Chase

Early years

Art career

Later years

Collections

Filmography

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References

Further reading