James Chapin
(1887 – 1975)
Born in West Orange, New Jersey in 1887, James Chapin studied art at Cooper Union and the Art Students League in New York. In his early twenties he became an award winning pupil at the Royal Academy in Antwerp. His work is represented in an impressive roster of museums and galleries including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Art Institute, the Norton Museum, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Harn Collection, the Fogg Museum and the San Diego Art Institute. Included among Chapins’ numerous awards is the Logan Prize from the Chicago Art Institute. Many legendary Americans such as writer Robert Frost, composer George Gershwin and financier John D. Rockefeller collected Chapin’s work.
The artist’s sensitivity for mankind is evident in his famous series of paintings depicting the Marvins, a farm family who lived near the artist in rural New Jersey during the 1920’s and 30’s. His insightful and heroic depiction of “Ruby Green Singing” (a young black singer) is the single most popular painting held in the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida. His late work created during the 1960’s and 70’s exhibits the depth of the artist’s concern about war and society’s injustices.