The Influences of Art - and the Paintings of Richard Karon
By the artist's admission, he was given some art instruction, while growing up in Poland. He didn't name those who had assisted him, or if he took courses, who the instructors were, and the location of such studies. We do know that he would be given interesting postcards by family and neighbors, to copy, as a fledgling artist, and whether he met art instructors in his elementary school years, we don't know this for sure. These are two lives of Ryszard (Richard) Karon. Coming from a City in Poland, known for the painting of the Black Madonna, Jasna Gora, and historic urban architecture to sketch, one could imagine the younger Karon, having no shortage of inspiration surrounding him, up to, of course, the compromises of September 1939, when the Nazi war machined crashed over the Polish border. A lad of only eleven years of age, it's hard to imagine, what he would have thought about, in those first weeks of occupation, other than the well-being of his family. As he would later turn more heavily to art, as a diversion from the unfortunate realities in Poland, there's not much we can ascertain of the child-artist, to explain his progressive career in art. What did begin in childhood, was his ability, as his father Jan, to do what was required to survive. Even barbering as a means of modest income. As the elder Karon was a qualified teacher, it is more than likely Richard was tutored well, in his youth, and of course, given the benefit of his father's capabilities as both a highly skilled woodworker and a baker. When finally settled in his home / studio, near the Village of Baysville, in the early 1970's, he brought with him those experiences of youth, such that he could diversify his business to suit economic circumstances. Later, on the advice of a close friend, he began working with fabric, to create lamp shades, for sale at Eva Scheel's gift shop, "The Log Cabin," overlooking Lake of Bays, a short drive from the Village of Baysville. It may have been that this was to cover a slow period in art sales. He could work well with wood, and was known to make finely crafted wood boxes. As his father was accomplished as a wood carver, and made money from the creation of religious icons, his son possessed many of the same talents, although it is unknown whether he also made crucifixes while in Poland. He probably apprenticed with his father in bakery work, and as a hat maker, both of which he relied on while in France, and after arriving in Canada. In Poland he learned how to cut hair, and there is the suggestion by family, that he had some experience as a hair stylist in Canada, and may have entertained the idea of following this profession, but they could not be specific as to where he might have worked. Or what may have persuaded him against.
It is perplexing, in research, to know so little about this period in the artist's life. This and the years, from 1948, when he fled the communist's increasing influences in Poland, to 1951 when he landed in Halifax, as a displaced person; (DP) which became a derogatory reference, for those coming to North America from post war Europe.
His knowledge of art was considerable, and it is obvious he had been influenced by both Polish artists of the past, and European masters, that he would have been exposed to, during his travels in Germany, Austria, and France in particular. While it would be important to this story, to have knowledge that he frequented art galleries, and attended special exhibits of the classics, or modernists, and that he drew inspiration from books on these great artists, he did not bring these revelations, or sources of inspiration, to his second marriage. From 1951, as a new Canadian, he settled in Southern Ontario, working in Hamilton for a cotton company. During this period, he was also working as a hat-maker, something his father had also be involved in Poland. One ponders if Karon, at this time, was being inspired by the national art scene of the period. Did he visit art galleries, and attend special art exhibitions in Southern Ontario? Who was the first person to tell him, his landscapes were good enough to sell? Competent works that could earn him a modest living? It would be highly revealing, for the purposes of this biography, to know how purchased his first paintings? To know how many he gave away, after their completion, such as the nudes, he is known to have painted, but never sold? Why wouldn't he have considered working for a graphics company, where he could have broadened his capabilities, and been paid well to learn on the job? Many of our best known artists, in Canada, did a stint in the commercial graphics business, that helped afford them time, to pursue their art forms. For whatever reason, he didn't wish to share much of this information, which has kept his son, questing for information regarding these unknowns of his father's art career. When did it begin? As most artists will agree, it began when there was that conscious decision to create for profit. For Canadian artists, such as Harold Town, it took years to make his first major art sale. It appears Richard Karon had the same beginning. We just haven't found it yet. But we are hopeful a reader will be able, at some point, to offer information we are currently missing.
It is accepted knowledge, that his common law wife, Fredda, and another German woman he was acquainted, recognized his capabilities as an artist, and offered ongoing support and encouragement to carry-on. He was competent at painting nudes, and some of these have survived in the family collection, as have some of his abstracts and experimental work which, by some critiques, was as good, if not better, than his landscapes. We have included a small number of these graphics with today's chapter.
It would be insightful, to say the least, to know that he was interested in the work of the Group of Seven, and although some of his art panels show his knowledge and acceptance of their work, it would be impossible to attach any relationship between his interpretations of the wilds, as compared to those of Tom Thomson, A.Y. Jackson or Arthur Lismer. We can find little evidence that he had admiration for other landscape artists, and there is no information about what convinced him to abandon his figure painting, or abstracts, to turn to the study of nature. As he was amazingly resourceful and resilient to changes around him, it is likely he found that he could sell his landscapes easier, and more profitably, at this time, than his abstracts. It was obvious, that he had tired of working in a factory setting, and it was also known he disliked the pace of city life. But he did learn from it, over quite a few years, and during this time, he more than likely crossed paths with other established artists, and galleries. We know he was actively purchasing paints and related artist supplies, and probably, by this immersion, connected with those who were painting for profit. Was he mentored by supply shop owners, and the clients who shopped there? A mystery that may be solved as this project continues.
Richard Karon took frequent trips to Toronto, according to his son, Richard Sahoff Karon, and he liked to visit shops in the Polish community, in the Roncesvalles Village, where he bought his family Polish-style breads and food he couldn't find in Muskoka shops. His son knows that his father had some financial / personal dealings with a Polish business in the same neighborhood, that may have been art related, but he was too young to appreciate what was being transacted. It isn't known where he acquired most of his art supplies, at this time, and if these frequent trips to Toronto, were used to stock up on paints and canvas. As the artist was known to love traveling, a trip to the city wasn't extraordinary. His wife, Irma Karon, believed his passion for the open road, had something to do with his past, and the incarceration he endured for a time, in his native Poland. For quite a period he did deal with K. Bros Art Centre, in North Bay, where he got his art supplies, and sold his paintings. It is also unclear what may have happened to this relationship, over the years, which seemed to change in the early 1970's, when he began work on his studio / gallery in the Township of Lake of Bays. During this period he had been living in a small house across the road from the property he had purchased, and was building-on.
As we have proceeded through this interesting biography, we still have many unanswered questions, and for his son, each new revelation has become a door-opener, in some specific, and even strange way, that leads down another passage of questioning. Having had a significant relationship with K. Bros. Art Centre, in North Bay, and having rented a small cabin in the vicinity to carry on his painting, it was obvious his relationship in Northern Ontario was productive in his early years as a budding landscape artist. He had, at one point, told a reporter for the North Bay Nugget, that he was planning to open an art school in the area. He did conduct art classes in North Bay, in the 1960's, up to the very early 70's, but something diverted his attention away from that market. We don't know, at this time, for instance, whether he kept up his relationship with K. Bros., much past the opening of his Studio / Gallery in and around 1972. What had earned him considerable press coverage in North Bay, as a rising star in the art community, seemed to fizzle after the studio became operational. His market was much larger in the north, than it was in Muskoka, where he had decided, for some unknown reason, to set up his art enterprise. The artist's son believes there was still an active working relationship with K. Bros., during his early childhood living in Baysville, but as you would expect, memories are vague at best.
He had made many forays into Muskoka to paint and photograph landscapes, prior to the 1970's, but it is inconsistent with the progress he was making in North Bay. He had held numerous art shows in hotels and motels around the city, and had even worked from a trailer, on a vacant lot he was offered, to sell his paintings. He had even set up temporary shop adjacent to the Dionne Quintuplet homestead in Callandar, Ontario. He wasn't adverse to trying just about anything, to get a foot-hold on the market place. We don't have any sales numbers to base the assumption, he did better in those years, working in the North, as compared to his years in Muskoka. Press coverage in Muskoka was much less than he had received in North Bay, courtesy the Nugget, which seemed to support his efforts to establish himself as that area's representative artist. If there was a falling-out with his associates in art, we are not aware of this currently. But to say re-establishing himself in Muskoka, at this time, was risky, is clearly an understatement. To go from what was tangible art sales, to speculate on the local economy of rural Muskoka, was a big risk for the artist. While it would come to be a good move, eventually, and a studio well received by the local population of Muskoka, and the seasonal residents, it can be stated, with accuracy, that by time he'd established himself as a Muskoka artist, his failing marriage and declining health, brought an almost sudden halt to all the progress he had made. As he passed away, the result of lung cancer, only several years after closing his Baysville Studio, it is unlikely those years would have shown much difference from the previous decade. His market base was broadening, his work was gaining wider acceptance, and the Muskoka art community was becoming a significant movement throughout the lakeland. Karon would have continued to do well in his studio gallery, if circumstances had been different. By the mid-1980's, he had many repeat customers, and his work sold well to regional cottagers, who bought his panels for their vacation retreats and city homes….to remind them of their stake in Muskoka. But as we have addressed previously in this biography, by time he had arranged the auction sale, at his studio property, he had also made the decision to conclude the major part of his own art career. He wanted to be close to his son, following the eventual separation with wife Irma, and the move south. Prior to his death, of course, the couple had reconciled. Although it is not conclusive, and there is no clear statement recalled, from the artist, that he was quitting his art-work at this period, it was the case he opened up a framing business, to look after other people's paintings, versus his own. It is hard for anyone who knew Karon at this period, his associate artists, patrons and friends, to not feel the sense of misfortune, for the family generally, to give-up on Muskoka. From my own personal contact with Eva Scheel, Karon's friend, from the Log Cabin Gift Shop, she had suggested he stay on and keep the studio / gallery operational, despite the separation. She recalled that being close to his son was of much greater importance, to Karon, than carrying on with the studio so many miles apart. These issues will be re-visited later in this biography.
As an historian in this region, I have many emails and letters of inquiry each year, asking whether or not I can direct painting owners to Richard Karon. Most do assume he is still alive and painting. There was only a small reference to his death, in a community news piece, in the local press, back in 1987, and it didn't make the daily papers. Quite a few of these people, with paintings, purchased the originals they have, from the artist personally, and would like to visit with him again, after all these years. If he had survived, Karon would now be in his 84th year. We have been contacted by art owners who are passing paintings on, via their personal estates, and realized, in the process, they possessed no biographical information about the artist, that they could attach to the panels. They hope I might possess some biographical material, for them to include, about the active years of Mr. Karon's career. Of hundreds of local artists in Muskoka, past and present, I have had many more requests for information, regarding Richard Karon, and this probably does relate to the fact he was a prolific painter, and probably sold thousands of paintings during the peak of his career. Mostly from the time he began selling, during his North Bay years, in the late 1960's, to the end of his active painting career, in the mid 1980's.
So here is what we do know……
"My art is the painting of soul,
So fine, so exacting, so strange;
To blend in one tangible whole
The manifold features of change."
(Gamaliel Bradford 1863-1932)
In a small, well kept scrapbook, in the possession of Richard Karon Jr., there are a variety of newspaper articles and exhibition announcements pasted onto the pages, from publications from Muskoka to North Bay. Undated, and published in presumably the North Bay Nugget, the reporter notes the following of his artist father:
Richard Karon was born in Poland in 1928, and studied art in that country during the years of the crisis. This was the time when many sensitive individuals had to turn to fields of creativity in order to attain any sense of perspective and hope. Having served his art apprenticeship through these troubled times, and finding it difficult to practice his art under continuing adverse conditions, he moved to West Germany in the spring of 1948. From there Richard (Karon), worked and continued his art studies, in various European countries before emigrating to Canada, where he first made his home in Toronto."
In another Nugget article, it is also reported that, "he studied art in Poland during the war years and has had exhibitions in Czechoslovakia, Austria, France and Germany. He emigrated to Canada, according to this reporter, in the year 1951. It is known that once in Canada, he never returned to Poland. At the time when he did wish to travel overseas, to see his family, in the mid-1980's, Karon was too ill himself with lung cancer, to travel out of the country. It had been his father's death-bed wish to see his son once more, but it was a wish unfulfilled. His son, in Canada, was never informed of this, by family in Poland.
What we know about the artist's work, up to the time he emigrated to Canada, is very vague and disjointed, without samples of his sketches. When there is the claim he had exhibitions in other European countries, from 1945 to 1951, we have no supporting evidence of this fact. At this time, he had made the acquaintance of several German women, one by the name of Fredda, who he had travelled with to Germany (from Poland) previously, who was particularly insistent that he continue to pursue painting. One, a friend named Kathy, who posed nude for the painter, and who emigrated to Canada, is said to have given him ongoing moral support, as a struggling artist in Ontario, which ultimately led to his becoming a full time painter in locations between the City of North Bay and central Muskoka. For the first tough years, trying to build up his experience as a painter, he worked at other jobs, which included graphic / commercial arts, and hat making for a firm in Southern Ontario. He had worked with his father in Poland, who was also a highly competent "hatter." From the days of cutting hair in Poland, dating back to when he was only fourteen years old, he also took training in hair styling, which according to his son, made him fussy about not only his own hair cuts, but those for his son which had to be perfectly executed by others. His son remembers his frequent criticisms of those who cut his family member's hair, and he recalls that on most occasions it was his artist father who did the barbering.
Like his father's multi-talented father, Jan, and with the moral fortitude, strictness and courage of his mother, the budding artist knew what it was like, as he said, "to be penniless," and "this way" many times through his life. In a letter, sent by an admirer of his art, dated on the second of November, 1976, the author notes, "you too, have been out of a job, penniless, also an exile from your country, because you have great courage and with hard work, you've done it," referencing his successful art career, painting the landscapes of rural Ontario. The letter came in response to an exhibition the artist had in North Bay, and the coverage of the show that was published in the Nugget a week previous. "I simply want to say, I admire your courage." The letter was pasted into his scrapbook, along with show notices and published reviews. Since his first days quietly, and methodically copying the pictures he found on postcards, while still in Poland, enough admirers and close friends felt he had the talent to pursue art as a profession. Yet there is little tangible evidence he was able to sell any of his work before coming to Canada, though there is the suggestion he left art work with his sister, who he had lived with in Poland immediately after the war. While sketching in his free time, he worked at anything he could in Europe, post war, to earn enough to eat. It was in his mind, that Canada might afford a better life, and after working in France at a laminating firm, and as a baker, where the heat of the ovens burned-off his eyebrows, he and a female companion…..who he may have married overseas, found enough resources to purchase passage to North America.
It is known that he would eventually find Toronto and Hamilton suffocating, and re-located north to the Muskoka region in 1962. He would eventually rent a small house in Callander, Ontario, south of North Bay, as well as a small tin-wrapped cabin structure, opposite the property, on Highway 117 that he would eventually purchase, and construct his home / studio, only a few miles from the Village of Baysville. By this time, Richard Karon Sr. had graduated from painting nudes, to capturing landscapes from Muskoka to North Bay, in the region of Algoma, to Sudbury, Algonquin and Haliburton, and he found some early successes, especially with his farmstead paintings he did, south of North Bay, specifically in the Powassan area.
"The warm and brilliant color combinations, plus versatility of style, have set him apart from the many artists, favoring a more realistic style of landscape painting. His paintings give a feeling of the viewer having been there before," noted one reviewer, of his early rural paintings. "The works of this artist with his individual style have been readily accepted by many, and his paintings are steadily increasing in value. Recently General Motors of Canada and the Haileybury School of Mines have purchased several paintings through his agency, Nick Kripotes and the K. Brothers of North Bay."
From postcard sketches made with nubs of old pencils, on virtually anything he could find to use as art paper, to the study of nudes, experimental abstracts, modernist replications, to the somewhat more sedate hinterland landscapes of rural Ontario, the budding artist was, by the mid 1960's, showing considerable aptitude and patience in professional art. It didn't mean he was much beyond penniless, at the time, but he had considerable confidence in himself, to eke out a living. He and wife Irma lived frugally, and both understood how difficult it was to make a living, and to navigate periods when income from art sales didn't keep pace with consumption and demand. Karon was particularly keen that there be no waste of food at the dinner table. He had a lot of experience doing without. So living within his means wasn't difficult, but his strong work ethic, and his early ambitions to sell his work, gave him many advantages other artists didn't possess. He knew the full extent of suffering for his craft. He had never had the advantage of a full education in art, as a young man, and most of his instruction came happenstance, from the kindness and interest of those artists in Europe and then in Canada, who saw just how talented the young man was, with paint and brush (later palette knife). Supplies which for many years, he had to scrounge and improvise just to make a small painting, or a sketch….as supplies were expensive and in short supply in Poland and post war Europe generally. When faced with having only enough money for food and lodging, he found he could do his art well, with charcoal and lead, if that was all that was available…..affordable…or that he could borrow or find. He was not of the privilege of many artists of his day, who had better resources to call upon. Yet he never used this fact, or his early experiences in Poland, as an excuse why his work wasn't hanging yet, in the provincial or national galleries. He was enormously pleased that patrons were hanging his art panels in lakeside cottages, and in beautiful homes; in corporate collections and businesses in Central Ontario. He didn't feel disadvantaged in any way, as an artist……but he did feel the burdens of a life once…..and the corresponding sense of freedom from oppression, and the liberation art afforded him, especially in Canada.
There is an advertisement on a website that reminds me, of just how accomplished this Polish Canadian became, in the advancement of his art. During an online search, seeking information on K.Brothers Art Shoppe of North Bay, that Richard Karon had once been associated, circa 1969, shortly after it was opened….. we found that the gallery is now known as "Maroosis Art Centre," still situated in North Bay, which has now been in business for 43 years. In 2009 the following was published on their web site, in recognition of their 40th anniversary. "In 1969 K. Brothers Art Shoppe was established as an artist materials, picture framing shop and art gallery at 242 Algonquin Avenue. In 1976 K. Bros. Art was purchased by George Maroosis who moved it into the present larger site at 232 Algonquin Avenue, in 1979.
"In the gallery we have specialized in original Canadian art with Native Art being a major feature. In the early years we featured art by the founder of the Woodland School of Art, Norval Morrisseau, and his brothers-in-law, Joshim and Goyce Kakegamic. At the same time our contemporary Canadian artists included such notables as Peter Fromme-Douglas, David Jean, RICHARD KARON, John Kinnear, Jamie Lindsay, Julius Marosan, Steve Oestertag (Stevens), Ernest Taylor and Arto Yuzbasian."
According to other clippings in the Karon family scrapbook, in those early years of K. Brothers, he attended an exhibition, put on by the company, with famed First Nation's artist Norval Morrisseau. At the time, Karon was not only showing his latest landscapes but providing demonstrations of his palette knife technique. For this exhibition he was also in company of artists, Ernest Taylor, T.C. Cumming, James Lindsay, Carl Ray, Roy Hartvickson, and potter Ed McGee.
He had also, recent to this show, held a one-man exhibit in Detroit, Michigan, at the Armenian Veterans' Building, promoted as a display of "Oil paintings - rural scenes of North America by Canadian Master, Richard Karon."
In the August 5th, 1971 issue of the North Bay Nugget, columnist Betty Lamorie wrote, "So, took advantage of the showing of Richard Karon's work and enjoyed talking to the people liking to know exactly where there painting originated. Seems they like to be able to say, "That was just painted off highway 11 South at Powassan. For this reason Mr. Karon has been working in this area. His scene featuring a beautiful white birch naturally caught my eye. I am particularly susceptibly to birches; while the farm scene complete with barn, wagon and grass appealed to my husband's farming instincts."
PART 5 Tomorrow
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