Chapin was born in
West Orange, New Jersey, to James A. Chapin and Delia S. Ryder. He studied at
Cooper Union, the
Art Students League of New York, and abroad at the
Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium. Chapin's works have been acquired by many private collectors and for the permanent collections of the many institutions such as
The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (where he taught portraiture),
The Phillips Collection,
The Art Institute of Chicago,
The Newark Museum,
Amherst College,
The Dallas Museum of Art, Texas;
The Asheville Art Museum,
The Currier Gallery of Art,
The Five College Museums Collections,
The Harvard Art Museums, and
The Indianapolis Museum of Art. Chapin had a significant impact on the early history of
Regionalists Thomas Hart Benton,
John Steuart Curry, and
Grant Wood with his 1920's series of portraits of the Marvin family. His work was also part of the
painting event in the
art competition at the
1932 Summer Olympics. Chapin married Abby Beal Forbes in New York in 1918. They had one son,
James Forbes Chapin, who became a celebrated jazz drummer and was the father of singer-songwriter
Harry Chapin. Chapin and Forbes later divorced. While teaching in California in the late 1930s, Chapin met Mary Fischer; they married in 1941. Largely due to his opposition to United States foreign policy in Southeast Asia, he moved to Canada in 1969, and died in
Toronto in 1975. ==Legacy==