Chase, George Henry

Harvard University Professor of classical art (primarily sculpture); principal excavator at the Argive Heraeum. Chase graduated from Harvard University class of 1896. He spent two years at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens where he excavated the Argive Heraeum, being awarded an 1897 A. M. from Harvard in the process. He continued working on his Ph.D. at Harvard, spending the 1900-01 year as a master of St. Mark's School in Southborough, MA. In 1900 he was awarded his Ph.D. from Harvard with a dissertation on Greek Shield iconography. He joined the faculty at Harvard as a lecturer in 1901, moving to assistant professor in 1906. In 1908 he married Freedrica Mark of Cambridge, MA; the same year he cataloged the James Loeb collection of classical (Arrentine) pottery with Loeb. He was associated with the excavations as Sardis in 1914. He was appointed the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology in 1916. As a teacher, Chase was known as a fair but extremely harsh grader. The lectures he delivered in 1919 as a course offered by the Lowell Institute in Boston were published as Greek and Roman Sculpture in American Collections (1924). The following year he and Chandler R. Post published their History of Sculpture, for many years a stable in art history classes. George M. A. Hanfmann assumed his publications of Lydian pottery from the Sardis excavations after Hanfmann became established at Harvard. In 1925 Chase became Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences until 1939 when he became Dean of the University, the first to hold that newly created office. In this capacity, he acted as president of the College when Harvard President James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) was serving in World War II and afterward when Conant served as U. S. high commissioner for western Germany. Chase issued fascicule 8 in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (series) for the Fogg Museum (Galletin Collection). In 1945 he was names professor emeritus. Chase assumed the position of Acting Curator of Classical Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, replacing the late Lacey D. Caskey. He wrote the first guide book to the Boston MFA's Classical Collection (1950). He died suddenly at home at age 77.