As the effort to write the history of illustration has barely been scratched, it didn't shock me to hear of a new name, Oscar Cahén. My first impression was that he was a Canadian abstract painter who had done some experimental work for obscure publications in the 1950s; he seemed like a minor Canadian Andy Warhol.

Then, historian Jaleen Grove raised my eyebrows by challenging every one of those assumptions. Maclean's magazine, something like the Canadian Saturday Evening Post, had enormous circulation when Cahén was regularly painting its covers. The artist's more innovative work was featured in such non-experimental platforms as a wide circulation Quebec daily newspaper, The Standard. And as he achieved renown as a painter, he never gave up or repudiated his illustration career.

When the opportunity came to mount an exhibit of his work, Grove was the logical choice to be co-curator.

While finally viewing the work, both in the original and through tearsheets (from the archive that has been propitiously preserved by the artist's son Michael) I did experience a shock. The works of art are not highly complex, but his artistry is, thick with apparent contradictions. Plainly, Oscar Cahén belongs in the illustrator pantheon, by virtue of his innovativeness (oddly combined with consistency); his sensitivity to human character (alternating with broad caricature); his versatility (without being a dabbler); his focus on Canadiana within a vast scope of subjects; and because his pictures, whether silly, tense, witty, or grave, capably evoke every mood. He never seems to have become lost in technical verisimilitude, but instead allows the emotional center of gravity to be the rule of each picture. For an artist who seems to play on an infinitude of disparate influences—for his line work, he channels and synthesizes dozens, including Harry Beckhoff, Ben Shahn, Karl Arnold and other artists of Simplicissimus, Milton Caniff and E. O. Hurst—Cahén also has a unique point of view and a recognizable voice. 

During the period when Al Parker was complaining that US magazines were wallpapered with romantic clinches, and was hailed as the great innovator for breaking up The Kiss, Cahén matched him in the innovation race. And did him one better, having a parallel fine art career that itself was wide-ranging, from printmaking, to analytical abstraction, to Expressionism. Within the constraints of popular media, he explored every bit as deeply as Matisse or Rauschenberg. This was more challenging, since as an illustrator, Cahén couldn't allow himself to lapse into self-absorption, but had to maintain a connection with his audience.
Even while limiting this exhibit to Oscar Cahén's illustration—the first retrospective of its kind—curating the show was tough. We present 40 works and I can say with confidence we have failed to capture his scope. We could show another 40 works and still not do it. We have not been able to include his printmaking, or much of his work from The Standard (it may be lost). His war period is represented by only one piece. [For a fuller sense of Cahén's illustration career, the artist's family has set up a new website:
oscarcahenillustration.com to sample his published oeuvre, including magazine covers, cartoons, graphic design work, record album covers, etc.] We didn't have any trouble showing his innovative side, however, and we brought out as much of his work that bridges illustration and fine art as was available.

I can't blame Americans for asking: if Oscar Cahén was so great, why haven't we heard of him? Unlike many talented Canadians who were attracted to the more lucrative market in New York City, Cahén stayed put. South of the border, we rarely pay attention to such local talent, assuming it must be insufficient to be world-class. In Toronto, Cahén found plenty of work, security, freedom, and recognition, and he was paid well enough to support a family, go to jazz clubs, and drive an Austin Healey. Oscar Cahén died at age 40; like Alex Raymond, it was while driving his sports car, not by starving in a garret, and he left two extraordinary bodies of work behind him, both of which provided acclaim. All this was compressed into a 17-year career that blossomed after a narrow escape from Nazi-ruled Eastern Europe. His bright flame was noticed during his lifetime, at least in Canada, but the wider import of his double oeuvre has been forgotten, even there.

By missing Oscar Cahén, we suffer a three-fold loss. There are the lost drawings and paintings he never produced due to his early death. There is ignorance of an innovator who celebrated the communication of visual ideas. And in missing out on his revelry in the mutually enriching sides of his career—fine and applied—there is the promise of a reconciliation between fine art and illustration art that is perhaps his greatest legacy. A half-century after his death, we've just recently found the thread of this vital conversation to which he so richly contributed.

— Roger T. Reed
Illustration House