Oscar Cahén

Oscar Cahén
Life & Work by Jaleen Grove
Oscar Cahén, illustration for “The Pirate,” by John Steinbeck, The Standard, February 14, 1948, ink and casein on illustration board, 30.5 x 50.8 cm, private collection
Perhaps Cahen’s most original contribution was a technique he called
“monoetching,” which he began using around 1950 for both figurative and abstract
works. The result was not actually an etching—a print made from a metal plate with the
image eaten into it with acid—but it looked like one. The monoetching was in fact a thin
layer of wax on illustration board that Cahén then scratched through with a needle.
Water-based pigment applied overtop seeped through the scratches into the exposed
board beneath.
Monoetching carried with it an element of uncertainty because, until the final
pigment wash was applied, it was almost impossible to see whether the wax had covered
all areas, or whether the scratches had gone too deep or too shallow. Indeed, it would
have been difficult for Cahén to even see what he was drawing. This may account for
the spidery hand and missing lines of the woman’s shoulder and head in We Don’t
Understand Our DPs, 1951. But the awkwardness of the draftsmanship in wax gave
emotional meaning to these wraithlike, alienated refugees. In a depiction of the
Crucifixion, c. 1950, Cahén used the monoetching to advantage when he literally gouged
out the illustration board and filled it with red paint to represent the wound in Christ’s
side.
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