|
|
|
RALPH CAHOON (1910-1982)
MARTHA CAHOON (1905-1999)Ralph Eugene Cahoon, Jr. was born in Chatham, MA on Cape Cod in 1910. The Cahoon family had emigrated from Scotland in the 1660's to Cape Cod. Ralph grew up close to the harbor and on many days could be found clamming, fishing or scalloping. He also had an occasional sailing trip on a schooner to the Grand Banks or Nantucket. Sketching was a favorite pastime for the young Cahoon; his drawings were a regular feature in his high school newspaper. He also took a correspondence course in cartooning while still in high school.
After working two years at odd jobs to raise money for art school, he was accepted in 1929 to the School of Practical Art in Boston, which was dedicated to training its students to produce art with a commercial value. He studied there for two years and, while his eventual choice of subject matter and independent nature deviated dramatically from the school's philosophy, he gained a sense of responsibility to his chosen life's work that remained with Cahoon throughout his career.
In 1932, he met and married Martha Farham, who was born in Rosindale, MA in 1905 to Swedish immigrant parents. Her father, Axel Farham, was a talented furniture decorator who learned his art in his native Sweden. He worked for some of the best-known decorating firms in Boston. When Martha was five years old the family moved to Harwich on Cape Cod. She excelled in school, but chose to apprentice with her father when she finished high school. Under his tutelage, she mastered rosemaling, a freehand method of decorative painting usually featuring scrolls and flowers. She developed and refined her palette and learned the more practical side of furniture decorating such as varnishing and stenciling.
Martha continued working with her father after her marriage until she and Ralph purchased a home in Osterville, MA where they established a business of decorating and selling furniture and antiques. Although Ralph Cahoon had a formal art education, it was through his wife that he became exposed to furniture decoration. In 1945 the Cahoons moved their home and business to Santuit, MA when they purchased a Georgian colonial farmhouse. They carefully restored and decorated it to provide a suitable setting for their increasingly popular decorated furniture and accessories.
In 1953, one of their furniture customers, the wealthy art patroness, Joan Whitney Payson, convinced Ralph and Martha Cahoon to frame some of their designs, which she would exhibit in her Long Island Country Art Gallery. The transition from furniture to easel painting was a successful one and the years that followed were ones of great productivity. Glad to shed the work involved with refinishing old furniture, Mr. and Mrs. Cahoon found easel painting much more direct, placing the emphasis on the artwork. Their first attempts were on plywood, but they soon discovered masonite, which allowed them to achieve the same flat, smooth finish that they had become accustomed to when decorating furniture.
While the Cahoons decorated furniture, their styles, subject matter and palette were virtually indistinguishable. Their transition to easel painting marks the emergence of stylistic differences in the Cahoons' artwork. The subject matter in their early paintings leaned towards Swedish folk and fairy tales, Swedish peasant art and early American themes - the subjects of their furniture decoration. Their mutual palette was mainly pastel in tone, consisting of soft pinks, greens, browns and grays.
During the 1960's, Ralph Cahoon's hallmark, the mermaid, was firmly established and his style was definitely his own. Many artists would feel constricted by such a limited choice of subject matter, but Cahoon's creativity within this genre exploded. His mermaids do everything imaginable; they knit, play golf, fish, hide in trees, pose for photographs, and are generally up to every conceivable sort of hijinks. The classic setting for Cahoon's mermaids is a typical New England backdrop of ocean and lighthouse, and also of hot air balloons. His palette had evolved and tended towards more intense, jewellike tones.
Martha Cahoon's palette remained tonally soft and muted. Her themes include nature studies, still life, pastoral scenes highlighting the different seasons, and scenes featuring mythological figures such as unicorns, mermaids, merhorses and mermice.
Both artists are termed "contemporary primitive." Ralph Cahoon chose to paint in this style and his wife Martha Cahoon knew no other. The work of both artists encompasses the qualities of the primitive in combination with the decorative style, all imbued with a unique perspective. Ralph Cahoon's work is well-seasoned with his special sense of humor and displays a cohesive vision of fantasia. Martha Farham Cahoon's artwork combines her personal vision, innocent and often amusing, to produce individual, yet universally familiar, works of art.
Do you own a painting by Ralph or Martha Cahoon? The Cahoon Museum has, since its inception in 1984, sought the location and registration of the paintings of Ralph and Martha Cahoon. The goal of this research is the publication of a catalog raisonné. Please click for more information.
4676 Falmouth Road · PO Box 1853 · Cotuit, MA 02635 · (508) 428-7581 · fax (508) 420-3709
© 2001 Cahoon Museum of American Art
