Sailors Valentines

This delightful exhibition features a selection of eight sailors valentines from the Cahoon Museum’s permanent collection. Created during the 1980s, the valentines showcase the whimsical paintings of Ralph and Martha Cahoon paired with the virtuosity of Bernard Woodman’s intricate shell work. The exhibition includes interesting materials from Woodman’s workshop and explains the mutual admiration and deep friendship that underlaid his artistic collaboration with the Cahoons. The sailors valentines on view are among the museum’s most popular works. They hearken back to a 19th century folk art tradition re-interpreted with trademark Cahoon whimsy — mermaids, clipper ships, hearts, and hot air balloons.

 A Curious History of an Unusual Art Form

The Myth of the Sailors Valentine… 

Centuries ago, sailors traveled around the globe on long whaling and merchant voyages and brought back treasures gathered from years at sea. In their long, tedious shipboard hours, they carved intricate whalebone objects, known as scrimshaw, and created elaborate shellwork compositions that they offered to wives, sweethearts, sisters, and mothers as homecoming gifts.

Housed in octagonal wooden boxes, sailors valentines consisted of an array of beautiful shells in intricate arrangements. Their designs incorporated hearts, flowers, and nautical symbols such as anchors or compass roses and sometimes carried a message –Home Again or Forget Me Not– written out in tiny shells. These shellwork mosaics came to be known as sailors valentines, sentimental keepsakes dedicated to loved ones – or the story goes…

Want to learn the real story? Read more

Ralph Cahoon (1910-1982) and Bernard Woodman (1920-1986)
Sailor’s Valentine with Clipper Ship, c.1979
Oil on masonite, seashells
Promised gift to the Cahoon Museum of American Art

Martha Cahoon (1905-1988) and Bernard Woodman (1920-1986)
Sailing Sky High, c.1980s
Oil on masonite, seashells, adhesive, fiber, paint, wood
Collection of the Cahoon Museum of American Art
1986.1

Bernard Woodman (1920-1986)
Sailors Valentine with a Small Heart, 1977
Seashells, adhesive, fiber, paint, wood
Collection of the Cahoon Museum of American Art
1986.5

Ralph Cahoon (1910-1982) and Bernard Woodman (1920-1986)
A Whale of a Valentine, c.1979
Oil on masonite, seashells, adhesive, fiber, paint, synthetic scrimshaw, wood
Promised gift to the Cahoon Museum of American Art

Ralph Cahoon (1910-1982) and Bernard Woodman (1920-1986)
Woodman’s Sailor’s Valentine, c.1979
Oil on masonite, seashells
Collection of the Cahoon Museum of American Art
1986.3

Ralph painted many centers for Bernie’s valentines and generally stuck with maritime themes. They referred to these as “spyglass paintings” or “rounds,” which often featured a clipper ship, a sailor, or a mermaid. The mermaid in the foreground of Woodman’s Sailor’s Valentine’s sits on a rock where she shows off one of Bernie’s creations.

Ralph Cahoon (1910-1982) and Bernard Woodman (1920-1986)
Dancing by the Sea, c.1979
Oil on masonite, seashells, wood
Collection of the Cahoon Museum of American Art
1986.3

This wonderful large sailors valentine, Dancing by the Sea, is considered one of Bernie’s masterpieces. The spyglass painting features a naval officer in his formal white jacket, dancing with a mermaid at the water’s edge, with a lighthouse and clipper ship in the distance. Bernie used some 4,800 shells for the sailors valentine, which measures twenty-four inches in diameter, including its elegant gold frame. Bernie encircled the round painting with a ring of small white rice shells, spelling out the painting’s title and surrounded this with examples of many of the types of shell flowers he specialized in, including pink rosettes alternate with spiky blossoms fashioned from white elephant tusk shells overlaying blue mussels.

Sandi Blanda and Martha Cahoon (1905-1999)
Martha’s Mermaid, 2008
Oil on masonite, seashells, wood
Collection of the Cahoon Museum of American Art
2015.5

Growing up on Long Island, Sandi Blanda enjoyed combing the beaches in search of perfect seashells. Years later, when a friend brought a sailors valentine back from a trip to Nantucket, Sandi immediately knew she wanted to make them and set about teaching herself the art form. She greatly admired Bernard Woodman’s work and has always regretted not meeting him before his death in 1986. Sandi is also a big fan of the art of the Cahoons. When she learned the Cahoon Museum of American Art owned a few “rounds” that Martha had painted for Bernie Woodman (which he had not lived long enough to use), she asked permission to incorporate one into a valentine of her own creation. The museum agreed, and Sandi donated the completed sailor’s valentine -in tribute to Martha- to the museum’s permanent collection.

Ralph Cahoon (1910-1982) and Bernard Woodman (1920-1986)
A View of Barbados, W.I.
Oil on masonite, seashells
Collection of the Cahoon Museum of American Art
1988.2

Ralph Cahoon paid Bernie $1,500 for his extensive contribution to this large piece, A View of Barbados, W.I. This stunning marriage of shellwork and painting makes a nod to the origins of the sailors valentine, along with creative myth-making from Ralph’s imagination. Several sailors examine a selection of valentines being displayed by mermaids on the tropical island of Barbados. The young fellow on the left represents Bernie himself standing in front of a makeshift little shop (fashioned from an upturned boat) bearing the sign, “Bernie’s Valentines.” Bernie was amazed and moved when Ralph surprised him with the painting. “He just showed up in my backyard…with it,” Bernie recounted.