Oscar Cahen

Notes:

Provenance: Masters Gallery, Calgary, AB (label verso); The Cahen Archives, Toronto, ON
Reference: FAWC 349

Born in Denmark, Cahen studied painting, design and illustration all over Europe before earning a Masters Degree at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. He obtained a teaching position at Rotter School and worked as a graphic designer, but his family (of Jewish faith, with a father who was an anti-Nazi activist) was forced to flee Europe. Escaping from Prague to England just 12 days before occupation, 24 year old Cahen was among many classified as enemy aliens and shipped to Canada. His artistic contacts in Canada helped secure his release and he was soon back at work.

In the 1940s, Cahen became involved with a group of like-minded, avant-garde artists in Toronto, In 1953 he was included in the pivotal Abstracts at Home Exhibition. Shortly after, he and ten other artists formed the Painters Eleven group and held their first exhibition at the Roberts Gallery in Toronto in 1954. This diverse group of painters shared a singular commitment to abstraction, at a time when it was received with negativity and apprehension by the conservative art community. A few exhibitions later, including one with the American Abstract Artists in New York, and the Painters Eleven were successful. Exhibitions of their work, organized in part by the National Gallery of Canada, toured the country from 1957-1961. Unfortunately, Cahen died in a car accident in 1956, bringing an influential career to a premature end, though his contribution and that of the Painters Eleven endures.