Chapin studied at Washington and Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1921. The following year he entered the art school of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1929 he became a member of the faculty of that school, a position he retained to 1947. He also taught at the Institute's summer school at Saugatuck, Michigan from 1935 to 1940, when directorship of the school was added to his responsibilities there for an additional five years. He was artist-in-residence at the University of Georgia, Athens, 1951-53. He received a Hallgarten prize in the Academy annual exhibition of 1930.
Chapin traveled widely, finding subjects in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England, and Mexico, as well as in the United States for his vividly colored, exuberant paintings in the watercolor medium, as well as oil.
