He sat in a corner of the Plaza beneath a white and yellow umbrella, drawing good-natured caricatures of tourists who seemed inexorably pulled to the friendly, witty man with a penchant for making his subjects laugh — and look good.
Al Chapman, friends and family say, was an artist, a salesman and, really, a piece of work. He had the sort of outsized talent and personality that drove him to refashion his life and find peace in wide-open-spaces New Mexico.
“He created a home there,” said the artist’s son, Lou Chapman. “And really, he became a Santa Fe guy.”
Al Chapman, whose work hangs on mantles and kitchen and den walls throughout the country, and whose presence provided a predictable staple to the Plaza scene for decades, died Thursday in Denver of natural causes. He was 89.
Lou Chapman said his father had moved to Denver in his twilight to be near family after his third wife, Barbara Cohen, died in August 2016. But while Chapman was born in Minneapolis, and spent many years in Denver and Los Angeles, he found his truest happiness in Santa Fe, where he could be a character drawing caricatures.
He got to the City Different, Lou Chapman said, on the advice of Pat Hanna, then an art critic for the Rocky Mountain News newspaper in Denver.
“They were good friends,” Lou said, “and she said to him, ‘Man, alive, I’ve been to Santa Fe, and there’s where you want to go.’ “
That’s exactly what Chapman did, first landing a job as an advertising salesman at The New Mexican, where he could perform a rare feat — draw, design and sell the ad.
But in his spare time, Chapman found himself pulled to his passion — art. Pretty soon, he was doing caricatures in the mornings and evenings on the Plaza, plus painting pastels.
“He got very proficient at it,” said Lou Chapman. “He was a showman.”
Chapman’s clientele, he estimated in a New Mexican interview in 2010, was vast. At one point, he said he’d created tens of thousands of caricatures.
“Toward the end of my career, I was doing the caricatures of the grandchildren of people that were my earliest customers,” he told interviewer Ana Pacheco. “I would draw people for their birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions. When I finally stopped in 1997, people were surprised — they thought I would be there forever.”
Lou Chapman remembers one customer in particular. With an exacting mom looking on, Al found himself drawing the facial features of a young girl. But in the mother’s estimation the nose wasn’t right. Then the chin.
“Finally, my dad handed her his pen and said, ‘Here, you finish it. I’m going to lunch.’ And he went into the Plaza and had lunch. He was quite a character.”
It was always that way. Singer Bob Lind, a friend of Chapman’s since 1963, recalled meeting his pal at a coffeehouse Chapman ran in Denver, a place called The Analyst.
“What is so unique about him,” Lind said, “was his incredible, creative resourcefulness. He was working for a furniture company and running a coffeehouse. And making a living with the coffeehouse. Then the coffeehouse folded, and he got into theater. He was always using his wit to make a living.”
Chapman suffered an ocular stroke in his early 70s, ending his ability to draw caricatures. But his art, with the help of a jury-rigged overhead projector and jeweler’s glasses, lived on. He continued to sell prints for many years more. He also illustrated children’s books.
Lou Chapman said he’ll remember his dad’s humor most. As a kid, he brought an unsatisfactory report card home to his parents, with a handwritten addendum from a teacher: “Tends to disrupt class.”
“I can remember my mother saying, what are we going to do with Louis; he doesn’t work to his potential,” Chapman recalled. “And my dad said, ‘Hey, don’t worry. At least our kid has potential.’ It was funny, but that was his outlook on life.”
Chapman is survived by his sons, Lou, Howard and Craig Chapman; daughter Rebecca Gregory; eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Chapman’s burial and graveside funeral service will be held Monday, Feb. 5, at 11 a.m. at Memorial Gardens Cemetery, 417 Rodeo Road. A reception and remembrance will follow immediately afterward at Congregation Beit Tikva, 2230 Old Pecos Trail. The family asks that any bequests be made to Beit Tikva.
Contact Phill Casaus at 505-986-3033 or
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