Hannah Cohoon

Background

Cohhon became a member of the Hancock Shaker Village and made "gift drawings" that recounted spiritual visitations received during the Era of Manifestations encountered by Shakers in the mid 19th century. Uncommonly for Shaker gift drawings, she signed her drawings, so that the works have been attributed to her. Cohoon had a unique style that was more abstract, simple and personal. She used impasto techniques to create texture within the drawings.

Early life

Hannah Harrison was one of three girls born to Noah B. Harrison (1759–1789) and Huldah Bacon Harrison (1763–1809). She was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts on February 1, 1788. Noah Harrison had been an 18-year-old drummer boy during the Revolutionary War in June and July 1777. In 1780 he was a private for a Berkshire, Massachusetts company during the war. He died the year after Hannah was born.

Hannah's sisters were Lois and Polly, born respectively in 1784 and 1785.

Hannah had a son named Harrison and a daughter named Mariah. She became a member of the Hancock Shaker community on March 15, 1817 when she was 29, Harrison was 5 and Mariah was 3 years of age. She signed the covenant there in 1823. In 1843 she signed the Sacred Roll. Her surname for the works of art in the mid 1800s was Cohoon.

Background

A period called the Era of Manifestations between 1837 and the 1850s represented a major spiritual shift within the Shaker community where "believers" regularly received spiritual visions which were revealed in song, drawings and dances. The people who received the visions were called "instruments".

Shaker founders and early leaders had often preached about heavenly treasures greatly to be desired. Never before, however, had Shakers dared to picture these heavenly treasures. Never before had Believers seen with their eyes the close formal resemblance between the things of eternity and the things of time. The subject matter and form of the instruments' images had been prohibited for many years as a threat to the purity of the sect. But a celestial content tempered and made useful this potentially radical art.

The profound experience resulted in Shakers expressing the "gifts" received from Spirit in drawings, messages and songs. Of about 200 surviving gift drawings, most were made by women who lived in Hancock Shaker Village, Massachusetts or Lebanon, New York. One example is Gift Drawing: A Reward of True Faithfulness from Mother Lucy to Eleanor Potter by Polly Ann (Jane) Reed (1818-1881). Called "gift drawings", the works were based upon wondrous messages that they received during Spiritual visitations. They were made with "painstaking precision" using watercolors or transparent inks. They generally included many small emblems, considered "wildly extravagant by Shaker standards," such as treasure chests, heavenly mansions, golden chariots, flowers and fruits. and included written messages of friendship or reverence, with calligraphic intricacies, resembling fine lacework. Generally, works would not be signed by the artist.

Key artists from the Shaker community were Cohoon, Polly Collins and Joseph Wicker. The Era of Manifestations ended when Shaker community members became embarrassed by the "emotional excesses and mystical expressions of this period."

Known works

Cohoon began creating her drawings and art in the year of 1845. She adopted a unique approach for her drawings as compared to other Shaker works. She used thick paint in primary or secondary colors that created an impasto texture, using bold, expressive brushstrokes. Her compositions were dedicated to a single object or scene with geometric patters. Rather than messages intended for others, she wrote directly of visionary experiences, and she signed her works.

Cohoon is primarily known for her spirit drawings with trees:

A "leading figure in the era of spirit manifestations", Joseph Wicker (1789–1852), an elder in the Shaker community, created a gift drawing of a tree in 1844 which may have been inspiration of Hannah's pictures of trees.

Cohoon described how the vision came to her to create the Tree of Life drawing:

I received a draft of a beautiful Tree pencil'd on large sheet of plain white paper bearing ripe fruit. I saw it plainly, it looked very singular and curious to me. I have since learned that this Tree grows in the Spirit Land. Afterwards the Spirit showed me plainly the branches, leaves and fruit, painted or drawn upon paper. The leaves were check'd or cross'd and the same colours you see here. I entreated Mother Ann to tell me the name of this tree which she did on Oct. 1st 4th hour P.M. by moving the hand of a medium to write twice over Your Tree is the Tree of Life.

The tree of life has become an icon to represent Shakers. In 1996 another painting attributed to Cohoon was estimated prior to sale at Sotheby's of $250,000 to $350,000. The painting, somewhat similar to and having the same name as 'Tree of Light or Blazing Tree, is estimated at seven times the record amount for a Shaker drawing. It sold at Sotheby's for $299,500 to the Museum of American Folk Art in January, 1997.

She also made A Little Basket Full of Beautiful Apples in 1856. Adam Gopnik wrote in his article "Shining Tree of Life" for The New Yorker that the drawing is "among the key drawings in American art, with a tonic sense of abundance—all the apples just alike, each with its rub-on of rouge, like blush applied by an adolescent girl—allied to obsessive order."

Cohoon is most well known as a creator of gift drawings, particularly for The Tree of Life. She is mostly known for her paintings, but she also composed music.

Death and legacy

Hannah Harrison Cohoon died in Hancock, Massachusetts on January 7, 1864 and is buried in the family cemetery of the Church.

Sister Alice Smith of Hancock Shaker Village so four gift drawings to Faith and Edward Deming Andrews, Shaker historians by 1931. The Andrews organized an exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1935. An image of Cohoon's Tree of Life appeared in a December, 1945 Antiques magazine article by Edward Deming Andrews. The Andrews used the image for the covers of Visions of Heavenly Sphere and Fruits of the Shaker Tree of Life in 1969 and 1975. The Hancock Shaker Village became a museum in 1960 and sometime after that the Andrews sold Cohoon's drawings and other gift drawings to the museum.

Her Tree of Life drawing was used in 1974 for a UNICEF Christmas postcard to raise funds for the organization. The Whitney Museum of Art held exhibited four of Cohoon's drawings in the "American Folk Painters of Three Centuries" show in 1980. Her works were exhibited at the "Shaker - Masterworks of Utilitarian Design" show at the Katonah Gallery, New York in 1983.

The director of the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City, Gerard C. Wertkin, said that Cohoon is "considered the pre-eminent Shaker artist" and her works "have become icons of Shaker material culture.