 Chapin's nephew was Schuyler Chapin, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera and Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for New York City under Mayor Rudy Giuliani.Cornelia Chapin developed an interest in art as a young child - dabbling in pencil sketches and watercolors - but by the early 1920s, she settled on sculpture as her main interest.Chapin studied under Gail Sherman Corbett and later shared studios with both Genevieve Karr Hamlin and Marion Sanford.