Oscar Cahén

Oscar Cahén
Life & Work by Jaleen Grove
Oscar Cahén, Cover illustration for Hiroshima by John Hersey,
published in The Standard magazine, September 28, 1946
Tearsheet, 40 x 30 cm
Location of original art unknown
Because of his experience as a refugee, Cahén was often asked to illustrate war-related
stories. Journalist John Hersey’s recounting of Hiroshima’s obliteration by nuclear attack
on August 6, 1945 (first published in The New Yorker) describes the suffering of
civilians from radiation in grisly detail. In what may be a research sketch, illustrated here,
Cahén drew a horrifically injured woman. But Hiroshima required a treatment suitable for
the newspaper’s general audience—“Not too much blood, please!” the client pleaded.
The illustrations also had to solicit sympathy for the victims—no small feat given that
Japan was regarded as the deserving enemy at the time. Additionally, Cahén had to
work in a style that would translate well in solid colours on newsprint.
Cahén chose to portray realistically proportioned figures free of caricature,
rendered only in black line. The cover shows vulnerable people: an elderly man, hat
respectfully held in his hand, and foraging women and children dwarfed by a wasted
landscape. The menacing, abstract shape of twisted wreckage in the foreground not only
indicates the force of the blast but also nods to Japanese woodcut design, where refined
use of asymmetrical shapes to frame a scene and make an interesting formal
composition is esteemed. Similar devices appear later in Cahén’s abstract works.
Hiroshima was a major commission, including an additional fourteen spotillustrations
of survivors, wreckage, and rebuilding efforts, and four decorated capital
letters. When the American literary agents saw Cahén’s work, they wrote him to say that
of all the illustration done for the eight hundred publications of Hiroshima worldwide,
Cahén’s were their favourite.
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Oscar Cahén, Untitled (389), 1946, conté on
paper, 54.6 x 34.3 cm, The Cahén Archives,
Toronto
Illustration for “The Californian’s Tale” 1947
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