Oscar Cahén

Oscar Cahén
Life & Work by Jaleen Grove
Oscar Cahén, The Adoration, 1949
Oil on Masonite, 122 x 133 cm
Private collection
“My ambition is to show people through my work that the fundamental thing is to have
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faith,” said Cahén. The Adoration, first shown at the Exhibition of Contemporary
Canadian Arts, 1950, and marked “Not for Sale,” was Oscar Cahén’s most ambitious
work made prior to his turn to abstract painting. It depicts a traditional baby Jesus
attended by Mary, Magi, and animals (and some untraditional others, such as the
foreground figure bearing a lantern). However, the ethnically half-Jewish Cahén’s actual
religious identity remains enigmatic. A friend recalled, “He wished he could believe in
God because he wanted so much to know the peace from believing. He made a
thorough study of almost every religion in the world and had the uncomfortable habit of
suddenly saying, ‘Tell me, why do you believe in God?’”
Later, Cahén was to say his abstract paintings were in part a search for faith;
perhaps figuration could not sufficiently address his spiritual questions. We might
therefore think of The Adoration and other works with Christian subjects as allegories of
universal themes rather than worshipful biblical illustrations. The prominent hanukkiyah
(nine-candle menorah used during Hanukkah) in the lower left suggests that, as in the
paintings of crucifixions by Marc Chagall (1887–1985), Cahén’s depictions of Jesus’s
suffering might function as oblique comments on the persecution of Jews in general.
The Adoration brings Cahén’s interest in the work of Georges Rouault (1871–
1958) and Gothic-period German art together with Cubism. The planes and edges of
The Adoration’s figures are hidden and revealed by a mosaic of interlocking, angular
shapes. Bright colours, more than narrative, direct the viewer’s eye from the yellow Star
of Bethlehem to the picture’s focal point, Jesus in Mary’s hands. But the focal point is
overwhelmed by the blinding whiteness of Mary’s near-rectangular apron, signifying her
purity. The resulting surface pattern and visual dominance of the relatively secondary
status of the apron to the story anticipates Cahén’s impending exploration of abstraction
rather than illustration.
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Oscar Cahén, Crucifixion (737), c. 1948, ink on
illustration board, approx. 31 x 23 cm, The Cahén
Archives, Toronto
Maclean’s cover illustration 1952
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