An Unusual & Important Painting by Ralph Cahoon

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An Unusual & Important Painting by Ralph Cahoon

About the Item

A Mermaid in Canton RALPH CAHOON (1910-1982), 1970-1980 The painting depicts a mermaid and sailor before a Chinese Export lacquered desk. The mermaid sits on a yellow garden seat and the sailor stands behind with his arms reaching in front of the mermaid covering her eyes. On the top of the desk are various Chinese Export porcelains each painted with an American ship. Out the window can be seen numerous ships anchored before the shore line in Canton with the various Hongs visible. Dimensions: Sight: 17 inches x 13 inches) Literature: For another example of a 19th Century Clock Maker's sign painted by Cahoon, please see "Mermaids and Air Balloons / The Whimsical Art of Ralph Cahoon" Heritage Plantation of Sandwich, Exhibition Catalogue May 10- October 25, 1987, cat. no. 34 "Fishing Scene" Reference: Ralph Eugene Cahoon, Jr. was born in Chatham, Massachusetts on September 2, 1910, and the oldest child of Susan Mae Small and Ralph Eugene Cahoon. He spent his youth clamming, fishing and scalloping, developing a deep compassion and reverence for the sea, as well as earning him some money. His other favorite pastime was sketching, which was encouraged by his family and resulted in entering the School of Practical Art in Boston. Upon completion of his disciplined schooling, he returned to the Cape, met and married Martha Farham in 1932. Martha Farham, the daughter of Swedish immigrant parents, Alex and Elma Farham, was from Harwich and was a painter in her own right. Her father, Alex Farham, had been a painter for several decorating firms in Boston before he moved to Harwich and set up his own shop. Martha trained under her father learning the art of decorative painting called Rosemailing, a free-hand method using scrolls and flowers and early American stencil design. Ralph Cahoon learned these techniques as well by observing both Martha and her father in their studio. In 1935, the Cahoons had their only child, Franz, and they moved to Osterville, Massachusetts and lived there for ten years decorating and selling furniture and antiques. They moved in 1945 to Santuit, a historic section of Cotuit, and this became their home, studio and shop until his death in 1982. He turned to easel painting full time in the 1950s and tried various surfaces to capture his primitive style of painting. He discovered that Swedish Masonite was the surface that most resembled the smooth, firm surface of furniture that best exhibited his technique of incorporating the use of stencils, the play of light and dark with combinations of bold colors and smooth brush strokes to give the feeling of a captured moment in time. Cahoon used his childhood love of the sea and surroundings as inspiration for his whimsical and fantasy art incorporating shells, sailors, schooners, whales, nautical devices and his trademark mermaids. His vignettes of mermaids are often portrayed within a Cape Cod setting and his work is characterized by crisp delineation of form, a clear jewel-like spectrum of color and a self-assured attitude toward his subject. "There is effortlessness to the work, a magic in those brilliantly enameled surfaces-cheerfully, intentionally, ignorant of the laws of perspective..." (See Alexander Theroux, "Cape Cod's Elegant Primitive," Boston Magazine, 1986, pp.91-92). Ralph Cahoon began to get noticed outside the Cape Code area when in 1953 he met Joan Whitney Payson, the art patroness. She saw his work and suggested that he frame them and send them to her to be sold at her Country Art Gallery in Westbury, Long Island. The paintings sold out immediately. He continued to show at her gallery until 1977 as well as galleries in Nantucket, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; Wilmington, Delaware; Neenah, Wisconsin; Carmel, California, Palm Beach, Florida and Nassau, Bahamas. In 1972, four of his paintings were sold by Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York and a special exhibition of his work was shown in the same year at the Heritage Plantation celebrating the opening of its Arts and Crafts Building. In 1980 one of Cahoon's earlier cupboards was featured in an exhibition "Paint on Wood," at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institute which traced American decorated furniture from the 17th century to the present and the Heritage Plantation, Sandwich, Massachusetts, mount the "Travels with Mermaids" exhibition showing both Ralph and Martha Cahoon's paintings.

Dimensions:
Height: 24.25 in (61.6 cm)Width: 20.75 in (52.71 cm)
Materials and Techniques:
Masonite
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
1960-1969
Date of Manufacture:
Circa 1960-70
Condition:
Seller Location:
Downingtown, PA
Reference Number:
Seller: VM981161stDibs: U1206088610279