Oscar Cahén

Oscar Cahén
Life & Work by Jaleen Grove
Establishing Himself in Canada
When Oscar Cahén arrived in Canada in 1940, he was already an experienced illustrator
with a recognizable style: a kind of cross between fashion illustration and caricature,
drawn with a calligraphic painted line. He also used a harsh, high-contrast crayon
technique for subjects that warranted an element of horror, such as a poster warning
soldiers to stay away from prostitutes, and a funny, cute style for spot illustrations.
Oscar Cahén, poster warning against venereal disease, c. 1944, The Cahén
Archives, Toronto
Oscar Cahén, Praying Family, 1948, oil on canvas board, 60 x 51 cm, private
collection
Cahén made a major transition around 1946, when—as in Praying Family, 1948
—he began painting canvases portraying people suffering, using thick paint and
simplified yet exaggerated body proportions and facial expressions, in dull, depressive
colours. He also painted Christian imagery using Cubist and Expressionist qualities and
more intense, uplifting colours. In 1949 he made his first abstract works, characterized
by unusual colour combinations and an energetic synthesis of intersecting and
overlapping shapes and lines. These were executed in oils and in pastels.
By 1951 he was working in bright aniline dyes on large sheets of paper or canvas,
letting the dyes bleed wet into the highly wetted surface, yielding characteristic soft
feathering of edges and lines. In 1951 Cahén increased his production, after receiving
attention in national newspapers, in Canadian Art magazine, and in the competitive Art
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Directors Annual. From that point on his works show the hot colour and cohesiveness
in composition that made him so influential. By 1955 he was using an increasingly
gestural line in his abstract painting, reminiscent of his illustration work, and he
sometimes returned to a more sombre palette. He also began a large series of
watercolours on paper using rubber cement resist and transparent layers of colour. In
other works he turned again to figurative subjects.
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