Frank Swift Chase was born in St Louis, MO on March 12, 1886. Chase studied at the ASL in NYC in 1909. He was based in New York and Nantucket, MA except during 1935-36 when he was in southern California where he painted the desert near Palm Springs.  He was the leading teacher of painting in Nantucket for three decades where he ran his own school.  In 1919 he was one of the founders of the Woodstock Artists Association along with John Carlson, Andrew Dasburg, Carl Eric Lindin, and Henry Lee McFee. 

Like the Impressionists, Chase relied on painting what he saw. And like them, selecting a scene, and framing it to determine its composition, were among the decisions most crucial to the appearance of the final work. Chase’s paintings are the heirs of the Northern Romantic tradition, and, although Chase was more faithful to the scene as perceived, they evoke a spiritual kinship with Van Gogh who also had an emotional response to nature and rendered it with expressive, tactile paint.  Chase died in Woodstock, NY in July 1958.  He is the paternal grandfather of the actor Chevy Chase.

His exhibitions include: Salmagundi Club, 1921; NAD, 1921; AIC, 1922; PAFA, 1923; San Diego FA Gallery, 1928. In: Charleston (SC) Museum; Mechanics Inst.
(Rochester, NY). 1] WWAA 1936-56; NY Times, 7-28-1958.