The Boat Harbor (Gowanus Pier)

William Merritt Chase's 'Boat Harbor (Gowanus Pier)' (1888) belongs to his series of Brooklyn and New York harbor subjects — urban waterfront paintings that documented the commercial maritime activity of the great American port alongside the recreational waterscapes of his better-known park paintings. The Gowanus Canal area of Brooklyn was an industrial waterfront environment, and Chase's engagement with this working harbor subject demonstrates the breadth of his observation beyond the fashionable public spaces he more typically depicted.

Chase renders the working harbor with his characteristic broad, confident brushwork — the boats, pier structure, and water handled with the directness of a painter who saw visual interest in the industrial waterfront's working character as readily as in the fashionable park. His palette adapts to the working harbor's different visual conditions — the grey-green of urban water, the weathered wood of the pier, the varied forms of commercial vessels.