ESCONDIDO -- County residents may not know the name Richard Chase, who died in 2007, but there's a good chance they know his work.

An eclectic original artist who also could re-create classical masterpieces, Chase's work adorned the covers of books, magazines and albums for decades. His art lives on in murals throughout the county and includes several 45-foot landscapes that tower over the lobby of the Manchester Grand Hyatt on San Diego Bay.

Hundreds of his original works, which were unseen and undiscovered for years, are scheduled to be revealed and put on sale for the first time at a June 27 exhibit at the San Dieguito Heritage Museum.

"The guy is like an undiscovered jewel, and really a great painter," said artist Don Burgess.

Pacific Beach resident George Penman, whose grandmother married Chase in 1975, discovered hundreds of paintings stored in the cellar and on the walls of his step-grandfather's Hidden Meadows house, which the family has been trying to sell since the artist's death.

"He did aristocrats, and he did migrant workers," Penman said about Chase's portraits. "He tried to capture the essence of who the person really was."

His portraits also are remarkably realistic and include a series of famous aviators on display at the San Diego Air & Space Museum, including astronaut Alan Shepard.

The cache of artwork stored in Chase's house overwhelmed Penman, a professional photographer. Unsure what to do with the find, he asked for help from Hidden Meadows resident Mike Richman, whom he met by chance last September at a neighborhood merchants fair where Richman was selling vintage paper collectibles.

"I told him it's not my thing," Richman said about the offer to help sell the artwork. When Penman talked him into taking a look at the work himself, however, Richman realized he had found a treasure.

"I was just floored by the magnitude of the artwork there," Richman said. "We went down to the basement and started digging and digging through boxes. I must have spent over 200 hours searching, compiling, collating."

Penman also called in his friend Burgess to help evaluate the work. Burgess said he had not heard of Chase before, but immediately recognized the quality of his work.

"He was just such a good artist," he said about Chase's myriad styles. As an artist himself, Burgess said he is particularly impressed with Chase's murals at the Hyatt.

"I bet there's not another 45-foot mural anywhere in San Diego," he said. "The biggest painting I've done was maybe 6 feet by 8 feet."

Chase, born in 1919 in Massachusetts, painted almost 100 murals in San Diego banks, hospitals and other buildings. He painted murals at 33 branches of Crocker Bank, five branches of Union Bank and nine branches of Southwest Bank. Many depicted historical scenes, such as the Battle of San Pasqual, which he painted as a mural at the Escondido Library on Kalmia Street.

The Copley family commissioned Chase for many paintings, including one for the James S. Copley Library in La Jolla. His artwork also was on the cover of the Copley-published book "Historic Ranchos of San Diego" and other publications. Copley also commissioned him to paint the whimsical murals at La Casa del Zorro, now the Borrego Ranch Resort and Spa, which the publisher bought in 1960.

Chase worked in several media, and his subjects ranged from brightly colored nature paintings, such as the egret in flight used for the cover of musician Dave Eshelman's "Jazz Garden" album, to gritty junkyards and cityscapes.

Judging from the boxes of art found in his home, Chase apparently let little time pass without creating something. Richman estimates he has found about 600 small pieces, which he has collected in eight portfolios that he will bring to the June 27 exhibit. Some pieces will sell for as low as $5, and many will be between $25 and $30, said Richman, who also plans to bring 10 or 12 larger, framed pieces that will sell for more.

The San Dieguito Heritage Museum, which has its own Chase mural, is at 450 Quail Gardens Drive in Encinitas. Call 760-632-9711 for more about the exhibit.

Call staff writer Gary Warth at 760-740-5410.