In late 1897 ten American Painters left the Society of American Artists as they felt that the Society’s exhibition was too commercial in nature. They were dissatisfied with the placement of mediocre artists in leadership positions, lack of quality. These artists were active in New York or Boston and were supporters of Impressionism. These Ten painters - Childe Hassam, J. Alden Weir, and John Henry Twachtman, Robert Reid, Willard Metcalf, Frank Weston Benson, Edmund C. Tarbell, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Joseph DeCamp, and Edward Simmons - were known as “The Ten.” William Merritt Chase replaced Twachtman when he died in 1902.