Wikipedia

Helen Burwell Chapin

For the American journalist born in China, see Helen Chapin Metz.

Helen Burwell Chapin (October 18, 1892 – March 1, 1950) was an American scholar, librarian, art historian, art collector, poet and translator, who studied and traveled in Japan, China, India, Ceylon, and Korea in the 1920s and 1930s.

Helen Burwell Chapin
A white woman with blond hair cut in a sharp bob with bangs, wearing round glasses and a dark kimono
Helen Burwell Chapin, wearing a kimono, from a 1927 publication
BornOctober 18, 1892
Wayne, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedMarch 1, 1950 (age 57)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation(s)Librarian, art historian, art collector, poet, translator

Early life and education

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Chapin was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania, the daughter of George Walter Chapin and Valeria Jenkins Chapin. Her father was a textile merchant.[1] She attended the Baldwin School, and graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1915. She earned a master's degree at Mills College in 1935, and completed doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1940.[2] Her dissertation was titled "Toward the Study of the Sword as Dynastic Talisman: The Feng-ch'eng Pair and the Sword of Han Kao Tsu".[3]

Career

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Chapin was an editorial assistant at a publishing house in Philadelphia after college. She was working at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts when she became interested in East Asian cultures.[4] She went to work at the American consulate in Shanghai in 1924, and traveled around China by bicycle.[5] She moved to Tokyo to work at the 1926 Pan-Pacific Congress. She became more interested in Buddhism, and lived in the Yakushi-ji Temple in Nara for several months. A 1927 publication dubbed her "the first bobbed Buddhist nun in Japan".[6]

Chapin also traveled in Korea, Ceylon and India, visiting sites important to Buddhism, and spent months studying and cataloguing holdings of the British Museum. From 1929 to 1932, she returned to Japan and China on a research fellowship from Swarthmore College, and was granted access to the Shōsōin temple's storehouse of eighth-century artifacts.[7]

In 1932, Chapin was temporary head of the Japanese collection at Columbia University, and worked for the Japanese Society of New York. She was art librarian at Mills College in the mid-1930s.[8][9] During World War II, she worked in the United States Department of Justice as a research analyst,[1] and after the war went to Korea with the United States Army as a monuments specialist.[7]

Publications

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Chapin's research appeared in scholarly journals including The Art Bulletin,[10][11] Journal of the American Oriental Society,[12][13] Artibus Asiae,[14][15] Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies,[16] and Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America.[17]

  • "Themes of the Japanese Netsuke-Carver" (1922)[10]
  • "A Theme of a Japanese Netsuke" (1924)[11]
  • "A Study in Buddhist Iconography: The Six-Armed Form of Cintamani-cakra" (1932)[18]
  • "The Ch'an Master Pu-Tai" (1933)[12]
  • "The Gion Shrine and the Gion Festival" (1934)[13]
  • "A Chinese Ganeśa" (1935)
  • The Story of Gio (1935, translator)
  • "Ganeśa in Hindu Legend and Art" (1938)
  • "A Long Roll of Buddhist Images" (1936, 1938; revised in 1970, 1971 by Alexander C. Soper)[19][20]
  • "Yunnanese Images of Avalokiteśvara" (1944)[16]
  • "Three Early Portraits of Bodhidharma" (1945, 1946)[17]
  • "Kyongju, Ancient Capital of Silla" (1948)
  • "A Little-Known Temple in South Korea and its Treasures: A Preliminary Reconnaissance" (1948)[14]
  • "A Hitherto Unpublished Great Silla Pagoda" (1949)[15]

Poetry

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  • "Ti'en-Lung Shan in May" and "The Forbidden City"(1935)[21][22]
  • "Spring Longings at Ch'ang-an" and "Among the Hills" (1935, with Lu Lun)[23][24]
  • "Night Near the Maple Bridge" (1935, with Chang Chi)[25]
  • "Passing by Pao-Ch'ing Temple" (1935, with Ssu Wen-ming)[26]
  • "Roads in Loyang" (1935, with Yü Wu-ling)[27]
  • "A Song of Separation" (!935, with Fan Yün)[28]
  • The Round of the Year (1936, translations of Chinese poetry)[8]
  • Echoes (1938)[29]

Personal life and legacy

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Chapin died from cancer in 1950, at the age of 57, in Washington, D.C.[30][31] Chapin left a large collection of objects related to her studies and travels, including hundreds of books, diaries, art, stone, lacquer, bronze, and porcelain objects, scrolls and robes, to Bryn Mawr College.[32][33][34]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Dr. Helen B. Chapin, Famous Student on Far Eastern Art, Dies". Evening Star. March 3, 1950. p. 14 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "Dissertations". East Asian Languages + Culture, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2024-11-23.
  3. ^ Chapin, Helen Burwell (1940). Toward the Study of the Sword as Dynastic Talisman: The Feng-ch'eng Pair and the Sword of Han Kao Tsu. University of California, Berkeley.
  4. ^ "China Art Expert to Lecture Here". Santa Barbara News-Press. November 24, 1939. p. 22 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "Vacations to Give Material for Lecture". Alameda Times Star. November 12, 1934. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "In the Limelight in Japan". Present-Day Japan (Asahi English Supplement): 5. 1927.
  7. ^ a b Liu, Yihan. "Chapin's Collection" Who Built Bryn Mawr (July 25, 2023).
  8. ^ a b "Miss Chapin, Oriental Art Authority, Speaks at Kingsley Meeting". The Sacramento Union. December 6, 1936. p. 20 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Rees, Ruth (December 8, 1936). "Architecture of Chinese is Told: Miss Chapin of Mills College at Kingsley Art Meeting". The Sacramento Union. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ a b Chapin, Helen B. (September 1922). "Themes of the Japanese Netsuké - Carver". The Art Bulletin. 5 (1): 10–21. doi:10.1080/00043079.1922.11409722. ISSN 0004-3079.
  11. ^ a b Chapin, Helen Burwell (September 1924). "The Theme of a Japanese Netsuké". The Art Bulletin. 7 (1): 26–27. doi:10.1080/00043079.1924.11409440. ISSN 0004-3079.
  12. ^ a b Chapin, Helen B. (1933). "The Ch'an Master Pu-tai". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 53 (1): 47–52. doi:10.2307/593188. ISSN 0003-0279.
  13. ^ a b Chapin, Helen B. (1934). "The Gion Shrine and the Gion Festival". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 54 (3): 282–289. doi:10.2307/594168. ISSN 0003-0279.
  14. ^ a b Chapin, Helen B. (1948). "A Little-Known Temple in South Korea and Its Treasures: A Preliminary Reconnaissance". Artibus Asiae. 11 (3): 189–195. doi:10.2307/3247932. ISSN 0004-3648.
  15. ^ a b Chapin, Helen B. (1949). "A Hitherto Unpublished Great Silla Pagoda". Artibus Asiae. 12 (1/2): 84–88. doi:10.2307/3248309. ISSN 0004-3648.
  16. ^ a b Chapin, Helen B. (1944). "Yünnanese Images of Avalokiteśvara". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 8 (2): 131–186. doi:10.2307/2717954. ISSN 0073-0548.
  17. ^ a b Chapin, Helen B. (1945). "Three Early Portraits of Bodhidharma". Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America. 1: 66–98. ISSN 1945-2926.
  18. ^ Chapin, Helen B. "Study in Buddhist iconography; the six-armed form of Cintamani-cakra Avalokitesvara." Ostasiat Ztsch 11 (1935): 125-134.
  19. ^ Soper, Alexander C.; Chapin, Helen B. (1970). "A Long Roll of Buddhist Images. I". Artibus Asiae. 32 (1): 5–41. doi:10.2307/3249525. ISSN 0004-3648.
  20. ^ Chapin, Helen B.; Soper, Alexander C. (1971). "A Long Roll of Buddhist Images IV". Artibus Asiae. 33 (1/2): 75–140. doi:10.2307/3249789. ISSN 0004-3648.
  21. ^ Chapin, Helen Burwell (1935). "T'ien-Lung Shan in May". Poetry. 46 (1): 20–20. ISSN 0032-2032.
  22. ^ Chapin, Helen Burwell (1935). "The Forbidden City". Poetry. 46 (1): 20–20. ISSN 0032-2032.
  23. ^ Chapin, Helen Burwell; Lun, Lu (1935). "Spring Longings at Ch'ang-an". Poetry. 46 (1): 11–12. ISSN 0032-2032.
  24. ^ Lun, Lu; Chapin, Helen Burwell (1935). "Among the Hills". Poetry. 46 (1): 12–12. ISSN 0032-2032.
  25. ^ Chi, Chang, and Helen Burwell Chapin. "Night near the Maple Bridge." Poetry 46, no. 1 (1935): 12-13.
  26. ^ Wên-ming, Ssu, and Helen Burwell Chapin. "Passing by Pao-Ch'ing Temple." Poetry 46, no. 1 (1935): 11-11.
  27. ^ Wu-ling, Yü; Chapin, Helen Burwell (1935). "Roads in Loyang". Poetry. 46 (1): 13–13. ISSN 0032-2032.
  28. ^ Chapin, Helen B., and Fan Yün. "A Song of Separation." Poetry 46, no. 6 (1935): 310-310.
  29. ^ Lindsay, Elizabeth Conner (1940). Chapin, Helen Burwell (ed.). "In Memoriam". Poetry. 56 (5): 282–283. ISSN 0032-2032.
  30. ^ Cammann, Schuyler (1950). "In Memoriam Helen Burwell Chapin". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 70 (3): 189–191. doi:10.2307/596270. ISSN 0003-0279.
  31. ^ "Dr. Helen B. Chapin". Press of Atlantic City. March 3, 1950. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ^ Chen, Dijia. "Shugendō Ritual Garment, gift of Helen Burwell Chapin", Bryn Mawr College Collection.
  33. ^ Katz, Helen. "Chapin Far Eastern Art Collection Includes Old Manuscripts, Bronzes" The College News (November 8, 1950): 1, 3.
  34. ^ Lee, Hye-Eun, Eric L. Pumroy, and Jihee Han. "A Study on Helen Chapin Korean Rare Book Collection in the Bryn Mawr College Library." Journal of Studies in Bibliography 72 (2017): 251-273.
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