Artist

James Ormsbee Chapin (Primary)

Title

Head of a Laborer

Date

1940

Century

20th century

Medium & Support

Oil on board

Dimensions

Frame: 19 1/4 x 15 1/2 in. , Panel: 13 x 9 1/8 in. , Image: 12 1/2 x 8 3/4 in.

Style

Social Realism

Object Type

Paintings

Credit Line

Museum purchase with funds provided by David Shurbutt in memory of his son, Kai

Accession Number

2021.01.01

Copyright

In Copyright, Rights Holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable
© Estate of James Ormsbee Chapin

ON VIEW

Chapin obtained solid artistic training at The Cooper Union and The Art Students League of New York, followed by two years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. In 1924 he moved to rural New Jersey, where he recorded the life of local people in a straightforward style that predated the American Scene imagery of the 1930s. Nine Workmen (1985.04.2.21) exemplifies the qualities that premier Regionalist painter Grant Wood afforded to Chapin’s paintings in a 1940 exhibition catalogue published by the Associated American Artists as “among the best things in American art, strong and solid as boulders. They were full of the pain and bleakness of a frugal existence of the land, yet possessed a subtle, melancholy beauty of their own.”

Exhibition Title: Asheville Art Museum: An Introduction to the Collection
Label Date: 2021
Type: Catalogue Entry
Written by: Cindy Buckner

• figure works
• workers