William Merritt Chase, November 1, 1849 – October 25, 1916, was an American painter and teacher. Born in Williamsburg, now Nineveh, Indiana, he studied in Indianapolis, at the National Academy of Design in New York, and from 1872 at the Royal Academy in Munich, where his teachers included Alexander von Wagner and Karl von Piloty; he also worked in Venice with fellow American artists including Frank Duveneck and John Twachtman.

Chase returned to New York in 1878 and taught at the Art Students League, later teaching at several other American art schools. He directed the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art from 1891 to 1902 and founded the Chase School of Art, later the New York School of Art. He worked in portraiture, still life, interiors, urban park scenes, and plein-air landscape in both oil and pastel; his students included Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, and Joseph Stella.

In 1902 Chase joined Ten American Painters and continued painting and teaching into his final years. He died in New York in 1916. His work is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, National Academy of Design, and other major American collections.