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20   The WASHINGTON POST: TUESDAY. DECEMBER 6. 1938

Visit of Famed Chapin Sisters Will Unite Their Two Talents

Sculptor to Be Guest of Poet, Each Marked in Her Field; Biddles' Cocktail Party to Honor Artist Here for Exhibit

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Hope R. Miller.

By Hope Ridings Miller, The Post Society Editor.  

A DISTINGUISHED "sister team," each member of which has followed the muse into a creative field totally different from the other, will get together this week-end when Cornelia Van A. Chapin, noted sculptor, comes to Washington for a brief visit. She will be the guest of her brother-in-law and her sister, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Biddle, the latter of whom is widely known as Katherine Garrison Chapin, the poet. 

When Mr. Biddle was appointed general counsel of the Congressional Committee investigating the TVA many Capital residents hoped he and his talented wife would settle down in Washington for a winter at least. They made an extensive circle of friends here when he was chairman of the National Labor Relations Board in 1934-35. 

But while the Biddles now are established in an apartment at 1911 R street northwest, Mrs. Biddle will not linger long in Washington. She plans to return to her home in Philadelphia before Christmas, coming back here only occasionally for visits. 

Sunday afternoon, however, she and Mr. Biddle will gather in some of their close friends for a small cocktail party in compliment to Cornelia Chapin, who will arrive from New York that morning. Her widely exhibited sculpture "Pelican-in-Repose" is to be included in the forthcoming show of the Museum of Modern Art Gallery. And that reminds me- yesterday's mail brought invitations to the gallery's sculpture preview, Sunday afternoon from 4:30 to 6:30. 

AS YET, I don't know much about the other subjects to be on display, but "Pelican-in-repose," done from life in Greek marble, is sure to be a center of attention. One of the few living artists to carve into stone without preliminary sketch, Miss Chapin has won more laurels than she can shake her chisel at. Her "Penguin" in black granite flew away with the second Grand Prize (Diplome d'Honneur) at the Paris International Exposition of Art and Technique in 1937. Her "Young Elephant," carved in an African tree, shuffled off with the second Anna Hyatt Huntington prize for sculpture at the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors in 1936. Her "Tortoise" in volcanic rock, also widely shown, is still another of the subjects that have added laurels to her name. 

MISS CHAPIN'S master, the great Spanish sculptor, Mateo Hernandez, paid tribute to her as follows: "In Cornelia Chapin we have one woman who has the daring, the admirable energy and discipline to practice the technique of direct carving from life in blocks of hard stone and wood of all kind. Her figures have each a distinct personality, the essential quality of each individual type."

Since 1930 she has exhibited in scores of shows both here and abroad, her work being featured by the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptores; the Freund Gallery; the Pennsylvania Academy in Philadelphia; the Salon de Tuileries and the Salon d'Autumne, Paris, where in 1936, she was elected societaire (the only foreign and the only woman sculptor to be so honored that year). 

BUT WHILE Miss Chapin, the sculptor, has been winning honor after honor, her sister, the poet, also has been adding luster to the Chapin name. The author of three books of verse, "Outside the World," "Time Has No Shadow," and "Bright Marriner," Katherine Garrison Chapin's most recent work is a symphonic poem, "Lament for the Stolen," which will be given before an audience of notables at Philadelphia the end of this month. A chorus of 250 women's voices in conjunction with the Philadelphia Orchestra under direction of Eugene Ormandy, will present the symphonic poem, which has been set to music by Harl McDonald, composer and director of music at the University of Pennsylvania.

Like a Greek chorus, "Lament for the Stolen" tells the story and voices the emotion of women everywhere for the mother of a child who has been kidnaped and killed; yet it is distinctly modern in tempo and idiom. Inspired by the most spectacular crime in the last decade, it has a special appeal to the lives of average, twentieth century American parents, who followed every detail of the Lindbergh case to its tragic end. 

SOCIETY-GO-ROUND: Mrs. Mark Bristol entertained at luncheon yesterday at the Women's National Democratic Club, having among her guests Mrs. Alexander Weddell, wife of the United States Ambassador to the Argentine. Others in the party were Mrs. Walter Schoelkopf, whose husband is on leave from his duties as secretary of the United States Embassy in Spain; Mrs. William S. Culbertson, the Misses Mary and Josephine Patton, Mrs. Frederick B. Lyon, Mrs. J. Fred Essary and Mrs. John Allan Dougherty... Arriving on Sunday  to be Mrs. Bristol's house guest and to attend the first of Mrs. Lawrence Townsend's musicales this season is Mrs. George Mesta, formerly of Washington and now of New York... Mrs. Bristol is planning a small dinner in compliment to Mrs. Mesta Sunday evening...Mme. Saito, wife of the retiring Japanese Ambassador, is emerging from the obscurity in which she recently has enveloped herself. She has cards out for a luncheon December 12. Senora de Ghiraldo, wife of the Argentine counselor, will entertain at luncheon tomorrow at Hotel Twenty-Four Hundred...Miss Elizabeth Howry, who has been visiting Mr. and Mrs. William Phelps Eno at their estate in Connecticut, will return to Washington today. 


Blisses to Give Dinner in Honor of Weddells

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss will entertain at a dinner tomorrow evening at Dumbarton Oaks. their Georgetown estate, in honor of the United States Am


Washington Post. Sunday Dec 11. 1938

S

Modern Art Gallery Sculpture Exhibit Brings Notables to City.

Cornelia Van A. Chapin Guests of Francis Biddles During Display; Romauld Kraus Expected this Week!

ONE WRONG CHIP means ruin, but Cornelia Van A. Chapin, whose "Pelican in Repose" is one of the 50 pieces of sculpture included in the exhibition of modern American and European sculpture which opens this afternoon at the Museum of Modern Art Gallery, digs animals straight out of stone. 

Miss Chapin, the guest of her brother-in-law and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Biddle, is but one of the famous people which the exhibition is drawing to Washington-an exhibition ushered in without benefit of teas and dinners by members of the Gallery Committee. Lucile Swan, another famous woman sculptor, whose recent one-man show in New York won additional laurels for her, is the guest of Mr. and Mrs. John Carter Vincent. She is represented in the show with her "Sword Dancer," in pewter, one of the diverse types of Chinese which she so ably embodies in many of her works.

Maurice Sterne, painter and sculptor, whose "Head of a Bomb Thrower" is one of the outstanding pieces in the exhibition, a bronze shown at the Paris International Exhibition last summer, is expected in town sometime during the coming week. So also is Henry Kreis, who won the international competition for a figure for the Bronx Postoffice, conducted under the Treasury Department's art program. He has loaned his "Indian Summer" a small brownstone figure, for the exhibition. 

Romauld Kraus, whose figure "Justice" caused no end of controversy in New Jersey-and 

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