Woodstock and Walled Towns

"Nantucket" by Frank Swift Chase

While researching Vachel Lindsay's relationship with my great-grandmother, Lyna Chase Souther, and his interest in sharing his utopian vision of Springfield with her and her friends, I received a query from another Souther descendant about Lyna's kid brother, Frank Swift Chase.

She asked me what I knew about Frank Swift Chase's involvement in the Woodstock artists colony. Not much, I replied. She filled me in.

Frank Swift Chase was a leading figure in the Woodstock Artists Association, one of a handful of its founders in 1920. He was among the conservative faction in an organization that included both modernist and traditionalist painters. His paintings fetch a good price and examples of them can be found at many websites. He later founded an artists' colony of his own in Nantucket.

This raises the question for my Lindsay research, would he and Lyna have discussed Woodstock when he was talking about transforming Springfield? Was there a knowledge between them of the tradition of John Ruskin in the Woodstock colony, and its predecessor, Byrdcliffe art colony?

I've posted an art gallery of Frank Swift Chase images here.