Minerva Chapman

Artist Details

• First Name Minerva
• Middle Name Josephine
• Maiden Name Chapman
• Surname Chapman
• Birth Date December 6, 1858
• Birth Place Altmar, New York
• Death Date June 14, 1947
• Death Place Palo Alto, California
• Residence(s) 1887-1925: mostly Paris, France
  
  1925-1947: Palo Alto, California
• Categories Miniaturist, Painter-Oil
• Training 1875: University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  1876-1878: Mount Holyoke College
  student of Jules-Joseph Lefebvre
  Academie Julian, Paris, France
  Student of Jocobedis, Munich, Germany
  1880-1886: School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Student of Annie Shaw and John Vanderpoel
  1887-1889: Student of Charles Lasar and Tony Robert-Fleury, Paris
  1889-1897: Student of Raphael Colling, William-Adolphe Bouguerau and Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois, Paris, France
  student of Emile René Ménard
  
• Relevant Travel 1886: Paris, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Munich
• Subject(s) of Art Array
• Exhibitions History 1893: World's Columbian Exposition, Woman's Department, Chicago, Illinois; The Village Church
  
  1897 or 1889-1926: Paris Salon de la Sociétè Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France
  
  February 1-27, 1898: Exhibition of Works by Chicago Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; Going Home; At Home; Our Garden; Railroad Embankment, Etaples, France; Still Life, Window Sill; Still Life, Study in Metal; Still Life; Portrait of Mrs. S…; Portrait of Mr. C…..
  
  1898: Eleventh Annual Exhibition of Oil Paintings and Sculptures by American Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; A Studio Corner, 1898, oil on canvas; Portrait of Mr. J.L. C. Jr.; Portrait of Miss J.P.L.
  
  1899: Champs de Mars, Sociétè Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France; A Studio Corner, 1898, oil on canvas
  
  1900: Society of American Artists, New York, New York
  
  1901: Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York
  
  1901: Annual Exhibition of Works by Chicago Artists, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
  1903: National Academy of Design, Washington, D.C.
  
  January - ?, 1908: Miniatures of Minerva J. Chapman, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
  1908, 1914: American Society of Miniature Painters, New York, New York
  
  1913: Royal Academy of London, England
  
  1915, 1916: Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, California
  
  1917: Adams-Davidson Gallery, Washington D.C.
  
  1918-1921: California Society of Miniature Painters,
  
  1919: Palo Alto Art Club, Palo Alto, California
  
  1919: Philadelphia Society of Miniature Painters, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  
  1925: Syracuse (NY) Museum of Fine Art, Syracuse, New York
  
  1933, 1934: A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings & Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
  
  January 18-February 16, 1974: Wortsman Rose Galleries [retrospective]
  
  1986: Mount Holyoke College
  
  1997: Potsdam College
  
  1997: Jefferson County Historical Society
  
  2006: Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, and Sargent, Frick Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  
  2007: traveling exhibition, shown in Pittsburgh
  
   
  
  American Women's Art Association, Paris, France
  
  American Art Students Club, Paris, France
  
  American Women's Club, Paris, France
  
  International Art Union Lodge, Paris, France
  
  Society of American Artists, New York, New York
  
  Society of Western Artists, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Collections Luxembourg Museum, Paris, France
  
  Mount Holyoke College
  
  National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
  
  Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Garden of the Tuileries, Paris
• Publications "Minerva Chapman's Miniature" Costume and the New Woman, Dress, January 1, 2002. 29 (1) pp. 75-85.
• Memberships American Society of Miniature Painters
  
  1909-?: International Art Union; first woman president 1914
  
  Society of Western Artists
• Awards 1915, 1916: gold medals, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, California
• Website(s) Woman of Courage profile written and produced by the St. Lawrence County, New York Branch of the American Association of University Women
• Biography Oldest of four children born to James Lincoln Chapman and Agnes Barnes.  Her father owned a successful tannery in the 1850s. The family moved to Chicago shortly after her birth, where her father continued in the tannery industry. He later founded the First National Bank of Chicago.
  
  Friend of artist Jessie Pixley Lacey.
  
  September 1914: aboard SS New York from Liverpool to New York, then on to Arlington Heights, Illinois.
  
  By her own count, she did 181 miniatures.  Also lots of watercolors, oil on canvas.  She rarely signed her works.
  
  quit painting in 1932 due to poor eyesight