Cornelia Van Auken Chapin was born in 1893 at Waterford, near New London, Connecticut. She was the youngest child of Lindley Hoffman and Cornelia Garrison (Van Auken) Chapin. CC spent her childhood in New York City, where she attended private schools. Her interests included book collecting, dramatics, and aeronautics; she became one of the first women to receive her pilot's license.
In the early 1920's, CC decided that sculpture was her main interest and studied with Gail Sherman Corbett. In 1930, she began to exhibit her work, and in 1934 she studied in Paris as the only pupil of Mateo Hernandez. From Hernandez CC learned the art of direct carving, and from that time on, all of her exhibited works were carved directly from life in stone and wood, without making preliminary models or sketches.
Cornelia Chapin is noted for her stone models of birds and animals, although in later years she added human figures to her repertoire. She exhibited in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Maine, and Paris; lectured informally at museums and schools on "Carving Direct From Life, Some Tales and Tools"; and was accepted as a member of the National Academy of Design in 1945. CC was also the only foreign and only woman sculptor elected to the Societaire Salon d'Automne, Paris (in 1936), and she won numerous awards and prizes for her sculptures during the 1930's and 1940's.
From the guide to the Papers, 1877-1959, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
