The Ten American Painters (The Ten)

The refusal by the more conservative wing of the National Academy of Design to grant Tarbell and Benson the title of academician on the grounds that they were excessively influenced by the French style was one of the factors that sparked the Ten American Painters' secession in December 1897. The Ten in question were Childe Hassam, Alden Weir, John Henry Twachtman, Robert Reid, Willard Metcalf, Franck Weston Benson, Edmund Charles Tarbell, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Edward Simmons, Abbot Handerson Thayer and Winslow Homer (who was asked to join the group but refused). When Twachtman died in 1902, William Merritt Chase took his place. All of the artists worked in New York or Boston.