War I, Chapman traveled from Liverpool, England aboard the SS New York in September 1914, ultimately bound for Arlington Heights in Illinois. By that time she had lived for 21 years in Paris, with trips to Chicago. During the war she lived in Chicago, Illinois and San Diego, California. She returned to Paris in 1919, intending to stay 2 years. She declared that year that she had never been married. She captured the 19th century independent, educated New Woman in her paintings, as described in the article Minerva J. Chapman's Miniatures: Costume and the New Woman. Her oil painting, Garden of the Tuileries, Paris is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection. Chapman's work is also in the collections of the Mount Holyoke College, National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and the Luxembourg Museum in Paris. Her paintings have been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. In New York City, her paintings were exhibited at the Society of American Artists, American Society of Miniature Painters, and the Society of American Artists. In London at the Royal Academy of Art and in Paris at the Paris Salon de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, International Art Union Lodge, American Women's Art Association, American Women's Club, and the American Art Students Club. In addition to her exhibition at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, she also exhibited at the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915 and 1916, where she won gold medals. Her paintings were exhibited at the National Academy of Design in Washington, D.C. and other places in the United States. In 1925 she moved to Palo Alto, California and continued to paint until 1932 when she quit due to poor eyesight. Chapman died June 14 or June 16, 1947 in Palo Alto at the age of 88. Legacy A retrospective of her works was held at the Wortsman Rowe Galleries from January 18 to February 16, 1974 and in 1986 at the art museum of her alma mater, Mount Holyoke College. Thirty of the 181 miniatures that Chapman made were exhibited at "Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase, and Sargent" the Frick Art Museum in 2006. "New Women" were educated, capable women following the American Civil War. In 2007 her works were part of a traveling exhibition of students of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, including Robert Henri, Cecilia Beaux, Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, Eanger