Ettore Caser Italian American decorative artist.

Ettore Caser was born in I880 in Venice, Italy. As a boy, he attended the Conservatory of Music for 6 years, and a year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice with Ettore Tito and Mario de Maria. Caser would later say that “With my violin I made little progress, still less with my drawing lessons, but I will never regret these years of study as they left a kind of perfume, and open door to possibilities.’ It was Caser’s grandmother who encouraged him to continue with art. He did not find his academic education particularly inspirational, but he did find inspiration in the chemistry of colors and glazes that he learned under guidance of Mario de Maria (Marius Pictor), the leading Italian tempera painter at that time. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Caser spent his meager earnings on ingredients for his “experiments” in his formulations of glues, mastics and varnishes. In his researches, Caser had discovered a recipe for the medium used by the Venetian Italian Renaissance painter Tintoretto (1518 – 1594). With this knowledge, he and New York artist Charles Webster Hawthorne (1872 – 1930), who was visiting Venice in 1906, developed a formula for the medium that was later commercially produced in the United States known as "Hawthorne Medium." [4, 5]

In spite of his skill with colors and glazes, Caser met with little success as a painter in ‘Old World’ and turned to the ‘New World’ for an audience. Circa 1908-09 he left Italy and came to Boston, Massachusetts. It is interesting to note that a number of sources state that Hermann Dudley Murphy, the well-known Winchester, Massachusetts artist, claims to have met Caser at his exhibition in Venice in 1914, and that it was he who had convinced Caser to come to the United States. However, most sources indicate that he arrived in Boston, either in 1908 or 1909, so I believe that Mr. Murphy was simply mistaken about the year in which they first met in Italy. [4]

Further evidence of Caser and Murphy having met prior to 1914 is that, in 1913, H. Effa Webster of the Chicago Examiner remarked on the “delightful contrast in the
temperament” of paintings by Dudley Murphy and Ettore Caser on their joint exhibit at
O’Brien’s Art Gallery in Chicago. He further remarked these artists paint, transcribing the same subject, although with differences in emotion and the sublime. This strongly indicates that Caser and Murphy had met before 1914, otherwise why would the two of them had have a joint exhibition in Chicago in 1913? And one that pointedly contrasted their own unique styles? [6]

At any rate, it has been said that Murphy brought Caser to the United States to show him a New England autumn. Once on our shores Caser found that the United States was as beautiful all the year as is Italy; however, he found that autumn in Massachusetts was far more beautiful than in Italy. A 1913 article in the “Chicago Sunday Tribune” stated that “Mr. Caser’s imagination was enthralled by this incomparable subject, and he proceeded to paint gorgeously beautiful variations of the new glory.” Caser first shared a studio with Murphy in Winchester, Massachusetts (near Boston), but later built a Mediterranean-style house in Winchester. He later lived in Boston and New York City. [7, 8]

As early as 1910, newspapers were describing Caser’s works as possessing “dignity, purity and skill of execution, are lofty in idea and in the portraits show a grasp of the characteristics of the subject that is unusual and successful.” At the time, Caser was aiming to become known as a portraitist and decorator. In 1913, Scott Perry, then the director of Pratt Institute, saw some of Caser’s work when he was in Boston and requested some of Caser’s paintings for a special exhibition in New York City. Unlike in Venice, Caser was achieving wide recognition and success in the United States, not only for his oil tempera paintings, but also for his watercolors and etchings and from the 1910s his works were reaching wide, and approving, audiences in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D. C. Traveling exhibitions brought his work to the attention of greater masses of the American people later on. New York, in spite of his exhibition at the Pratt Institute, was slower in recognizing the talents of Caser. Although he was invited to exhibit at the National Academy of Design, he was not offered an associate membership until 1931. [1, 8, 9]

Just as Caser was gaining his recognition as an artist in the United States, Italy summoned him. He had not yet become an American citizen by the start of World War I, (although he had started the paperwork) and Italy was calling into service those Italian men born in 1880, as Caser was. He reported to the Italian Consul in Boston, and sailed for Italy in 1917. He fought in the trenches at Gonitza (probably Gorizia) and the on the Italian Alps and received a War Cross for Distinguished service. He became a U. S. citizen when returned to the Unites States in 1920. It appears that, at least some time during the 1920s, Caser had a studio in Venice and in 1922 had paintings accepted for the first International Exposition of Modern Art in Venice since the war. [2, 10, 11, 12]

He returned to the United States to continued success. Caser attributed his success to the fact that here “the public too is different; less animosity between the public and the artist. A man of little means likes to have a good painting in his house and pays well—is proud of it. Many women and girls are playing with palette and brushes in this country compared with Europe. The art problem is more deeply felt here, and the American ideals are based on solid ground; here and there you find the “purest form,’ and a noble way of representing nature, adding a new perfume to the older. More and more the very soul of this country, combining effort from everywhere, is working toward a great future.” [5]

In 1917 Evelyn Marie Stuart, writing for the “Fine Arts Journal,” said of Caser “he does not paint nature, he paints decoration, his works have the quality of idealism that has been the charm of many of the world's great masterpieces of classic literature. Artists say that his method is similar to that of Titian in its building up of color. This is the treatment he accords to landscape and figure alike, ever fanciful, colorful, noble and graceful, with the rich beauty of the fabled realm of nymph and faun. His color is thoroughly Italian, the famed blue of skies and waters gleaming enamel like amid more vivid hues of gold and scarlet, all balanced with infinite nicety and skill by his use of darker masses.” [13]

Caser was a versatile artist--etcher, decorator and figure painter, marine painter and portraitist. One of his best portraits was that of Hermann Dudley Murphy’s children. When expatriate artist, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925] was visiting Boston, 1916-1918, to paint murals for the new Boston Public Library, he would visit Caser’s friend and mentor Hermann Dudley Murphy’s home to see Caser’s self-portrait. Caser, in addition to oils, watercolors and etchings, also painted murals; four at one time had hung in the Engineers' Club, New York City, the Toledo (Ohio) National Bank, and the former Ginn Estate in Winchester (razed in 1946). [2, 9, 14, 15]

Caser, the “decorative” artist, in 1920, had exhibited a series of painting titled "Decorative Paintings Harmonizing with Architectural Design." The New Times stated that they represent the idea which many people are now accepting that the pictures on the walls of a room should be part of its decorative effect, producing a fine ensemble; that the place for a collection of pictures as such is in an art gallery, and those of personal interest in the rooms intended for personal and private use. Some have considered that landscapes were his best work with the water and trees handled in decorative style. [10, 16]

Caser was living in New York City by the late 1930s; while the United States was still in the grip of The Great Depression. Caser joined the Federal Artists’ Project, a part of New Deal’s Works Progress Administration. During this time, Caser went to Winchester again to execute a mural for the new Winchester Public Library--his friend Murphy was one of the founders. “Bible Reading in a Puritan Home,” still hangs over the fireplace in the library reading room. The library now has possession of Caser’s self-portrait. 17, 18, 19]

Caser exhibited in Venice, Turin, London; Pennsylvania Academy of Design (1909-28); Corcoran Gallery (1914-19, 1926, 1932); Art Institute of Chicago; Pan-Pacific Expo (San Francisco, 1915, silver medal); and Grand Central Art Galleries (NYC, 1929, award). [1, 17, 19]
Ettore Caser - On the Pond
Caser, the superb colorist and decorative artist, died at his Broadway studio, New York City in 1944 and is buried at the Murphy family plot at the Wildwood Cemetery in Winchester, Massachusetts. In 1945, a memorial exhibition for Caser was held at the Grand Central Galleries. [20]

Written by Joan Hawk, Researcher and Co-Owner Bedford Fine Art Gallery, September 21, 2026.
Use only with the permission of Bedford Fine Art Gallery.
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