Oscar Cahén

Oscar Cahén
Life & Work by Jaleen Grove
His intimate friend Beatrice Shapiro Fischer relates that she met Oscar Cahén
when she—an editorial staff member of Magazine Digest in Toronto—came to interview
an internee, and Cahén bribed the other men with drawings so that they would drop out
of the line-up to see her. Crowded into a guard’s kiosk with no place to sit, standing eye
to eye as she asked her questions, they fell in love. Cahén was “wonderfully humorous,”
she remembers, but clearly suffering from stress. He was “this quivering, brilliant,
agonized presence” and “his face was pain-filled . . . that pain never entirely left him.”
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Oscar Cahén, Untitled, c. 1941, watercolour on paper, 14.6 x 21.6 cm, collection of
Beatrice Fischer. Cahén mailed this watercolour and its counterpart (right) to
Beatrice Fischer while he was interned in Camp N
Oscar Cahén, Untitled, c. 1941, watercolour on paper, 14.6 x 21.6 cm, collection of
Beatrice Fischer. This image and its counterpart (left) likely depict the landscape
around the camp in Sherbooke, Quebec
In 1942 a liaison with the Central Committee for Interned Refugees took his and
other internees’ artwork to prospective employers in Montreal. The Standard requested
drawings of a rather clichéd ski chalet scene while cautioning that “this trial is on a
purely speculative basis.” Soon The Standard proudly told readers: “[Oscar Cahén’s
illustrations] are so outstanding that we’ve sent him some of our coming fiction offerings.
. . . Watch for his name because he is our ‘find’ in the world of commercial art.”
Contrary to previous reports, the subjects Cahén illustrated were amusing and
lighthearted. He loyally remained a regular illustrator for The Standard until his death.
Meanwhile Oscar and Beatrice kept up
correspondence, and she moved to Montreal in
order to help free the interns. Secure
employment was the prerequisite for being
released from Camp N, so Beatrice found jobs
for herself and then for Oscar with entrepreneur
Colin Gravenor, who ran a public relations firm.
Oscar Cahén was released from Camp N on
October 26, 1942. At Gravenor’s firm, he and
Beatrice collaborated as writer and illustrator.
In November 1943 Gravenor used his
influence to get Cahén into a prestigious
exhibition at the Art Association of Montreal.
There was no better exposure for a Montreal
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Oscar Cahén and Beatrice Fischer photographed on the street in Montreal, c. 1943
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