Nine Workmen exemplifies the qualities that famed Regionalist painter Grant Wood attributed to James Chapin's paintings as "among the best things in American art, strong and solid as boulders. They were full of the pain and bleakness of a frugal existence of the land, yet possessed a subtle, melancholy beauty of their own."
Chapin obtained a solid artistic training at The Cooper Union and The Art Students League of New York, followed by two years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. He lived and worked primarily in New Jersey and New York City.
