#cityofpeace

[force-for-freedom]

Tall tales, and mathemeticians proof

Voyages to the Inner Earth and the Realm of Aghartha

[vinegartoteeth]

Western Wall

- Jean-Léon Gérôme

[hancockstories]

1962 | The Mary Parsons Collection

John E. Parsons died in 1915, leaving his fortune and property to his six children. To his two unmarried daughters, Mary (1863-1940) and Gertrude (1870-1927), he left Stonover Estate in Lenox, Massachusetts. The sisters, then in their 50s, immediately set out on adventures to China and Europe and remodeled the Victorian manor into a French country home with yellow stucco and a sprawling terrace for summer parties. The lavish parties they hosted included after-dinner lectures from academics, artists, and revolutionaries including Aleksandr Kerensky (1881-1970), a key figure in the Russian Revolution (1917).

After Gertrude’s death, Parsons threw herself into her passion for conservation and in 1929 she founded the 350-acre Pleasant Valley Sanctuary in Lenox. She opened the trails on her estate to fellow nature enthusiasts and in the 1930s reintroduced beavers to the state.

Between creating a sanctuary and hosting a weekly lecture series, Parsons befriended the brothers and sisters at the local Shaker communities. In 1938 she purchased a collection of furniture and objects directly from the Shakers to decorate a bird sanctuary barn on her property. Twenty years after her death Shaker Community, Inc. acquired 50 of those pieces. Parsons was fondly remembered by her friend Amy Bess Miller as having “not one pretense about her.”

[hancockstories]

1962 | The Vincent Newton Collection

Vincent Newton was a friend of the Millers and the Andrewses and an early supporter of Hancock Shaker Village. Like many collectors whose objects form the foundational collection of the museum, he knew the Shakers personally. He had a summer home in Charlemont, Massachusetts, and often visited Hancock. Newton continued to visit the Village after it became a museum and would often delight the staff and trustees with his personal stories of the Shakers.

The fledgling Shaker Community, Inc. was looking for artifacts to fill their numerous buildings and in 1962 a portion of Newton’s collection became available. A curated selection of objects, many with Hancock provenance, were chosen by Andrews and presented to the trustees for purchase. Upon approval, Andrews rented a truck and retrieved the new acquisitions himself.

Amy Bess Miller heard that Newton was looking to sell two gift drawings from his collection and she inquired about purchasing both. He told her that he had already promised one to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum so instead she convinced him to let her pick first and selected "A Present from Mother Lucy to Eliza Ann Taylor" by Polly Jane Reed.

Photo:  "A Present from Mother Lucy to Eliza Ann Taylor," by Polly Jane Reed. Collection of Hancock Shaker Village. 

[hancockstories]

1962 | The Charles Sheeler Collection

Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) rose to fame in the 1920s as part of the Precisionism art movement. His realistic paintings and photographs of factories, turbines, and barns have minimal detail, focusing instead on the shape, simplicity, and geometry of architecture and industrial design. Along with fellow American modernists, Sheeler greatly admired the Shaker aesthetic. He described their architecture as examples of “utilitarian design” and “rightness of proportion,” often painting and photographing the Shaker sites at New Lebanon, New York, and Hancock, Massachusetts in the 1930s.

Sheeler also collected Shaker furniture for his home, and 15 of those pieces found their way into the collections of Hancock Shaker Village. The objects first arrived at the Village as part of a loan in 1962 and, subsequently, were purchased in 1963 for $10,000. When Sheeler’s gallerist offered to sell the collection to the Village, Amy Bess Miller raised the funds by calling on friends and collectors to donate -- notably the Rockerfellers. Though the Charles Sheeler Collection is small, the pieces are exceptional examples of Shaker design, and many have clear Hancock provenance. Unfortunately, Sheeler never saw his objects on display back home in the Brick Dwelling, he died in 1965 of a stroke before he could visit the Village.

Photo: The Sheeler Collection arriving at the Village in 1962. The handwriting is by Amy Bess Miller, who pasted this photo into one of her many scrapbooks.