James William Pattison

Louis Betts was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and learned to paint as a child from his father, Edwin Daniel Betts, a landscape painter associated with the famous tonalist and Barbizon painter George Inness. Having first learned the techniques of painting, he then attended the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Betts pursued further study in New York and took the opportunity to learn under William Merritt Chase at his famous summer school on Long Island. Chase had a potent effect on the technique of Betts, who continued his instruction with Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art in 1894. The Academy would expand his artistic outlook outside of the precepts of Chase, as Betts won a fellowship there which allowed him to travel to Europe for two years and study the Old Masters.

This painting was among his first works when he returned to Chicago in 1906. The subject of the portrait is James William Pattison, pictured here at age sixty-two. A cultural progressive, he was active in the Chicago arts scene, serving on numerous boards and other key positions that would shape the city’s artistic future. He was also a gifted artist and critic. His idyllic landscape painting of sheep, Tranquility, in the collection of the Union League Club of Chicago, serves as testament to his artistic prowess.

This portrait by Louis Betts is an elegant translation of not a specific likeness but rather the essence and persona of the individual. Scant details concerning the sitter and his attire are present. Pattison casually holds a pair of tan leather gloves in his right hand and steadies his left hand on a cane. The background is dark and indistinct, a technique that allows the features and character of the sitter to come forward. The painting was received with tremendous acclaim, and garnered Betts a prime position among society painters of his time. He would go on to paint many Chicago doyennes and dignitaries. Betts was a member of the Union League Club of Chicago and served on the Art Committee for nearly a decade, traveling back and forth between Chicago and New York.