Viewing page 65 of 154

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

ART DIGEST
Hernandez Disciple

ANIMALS AND BIRDS from the zoo, carved directly into stone and wood by Cornelia Van A. Chapin, are scattered about in the Fifteen Gallery, New York, where they may be viewed until April 16. Mrs. Chapin, whose young elephant, carved in African wood, won the 2nd Anna Hyatt Huntington Award in 1936 at the annual exhibition of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, studied with Hernandez, the noted Spanish exponent of direct carving.

"We have seen," writes Hernandez in the Chapin catalogue, "the great Egyptian and Chaldean stone sculptures and bas-reliefs, and the indescribable beauty of the Oriental, of the Chinese, the Indo-Chinese, the Javanese. All primitive peoples practised direct carving because it allows the spirit to reveal itself with the greatest emotional intensity .... It is the most powerful means, among all the methods employed by sculptors, to reveal with vigor the true personality of the artist. The sculptor carving direct from life has the fierce joy of conquering rebellious matter, shaping it to the essential planes of his living model."

"In Cornelia Chapin we have one woman who has had the daring, the admirable energy and discipline to practise the technique of direct carving from life in blocks of hard stone and wood .... Her figures have each a distinct personality, the essential quality of each individual type; the wise dignity of the elephant, the patient and indomitable thrust of the tortoise or the alertness of the guinea pig. Her work has warmth, humor, a classic simplicity and purity of impulse. She has made no false effort to compose but rather to choose, in all humility, that natural rhythm which best conveys the quality of life itself."

"Friendly and sociable" were the adjectives used by Jerome Klein to describe Mrs. Chapin's animals. "There are the elephant, the Belgian hare, bear cub, young pig, tortoise, penguin and others, all in placid attitude," wrote Mr. Klein in the New York Post. "Mrs. Chapin is as much at home with the various materials she uses as with her models. It is an attractive, intimate display."

Pelican in Repose: CORNELIA VAN A. CHAPIN (See Article Above)
[[image]]
15th April, 1938

MAGAZINE OF ART WASH. D.C.
[[image]]
Cornelia Van A. Chapin's "Pelican in Repose" carved direct in marble was included in her April show at Fifteen Gallery, N.Y.
May 1st 1938

LONG BRANCH RECORD
Seen and Heard
By DOROTHY DORAN

Exit Till Easter.
Exit-Mrs. Walter Rullman from Red Bank. Return-after Easter. Reason-Time to enjoy fully the sculpture display of her friend, Cornelia Van A. Chapin, at her studio in the Fifteen Gallery, New York, until April 16.

Fancy having a big truck lug a huge piece of stone to New York Zoo and then find Cornelia Van Chapin before it ready to turn that mass into a lion, monkey, elephant or any animal which loomed before her. That's why the things she does look as though they were breathing-almost.

How she can get a pelican to sit long enough to make him look in Greek Marble like she does, not only proves talent but a gift of patience surmounting endurance.

We saw a little Belgian hare she fashioned ebony and a penguin in black granite. These weren't big. This Belgian hare made inroads on our imagination. It resembled an Easter bunny. But she didn't call it that. And this exhibition we hear is everything everybody expected it to be-And more.
***
APR. 9th