A BRIEF PROFILE OF THE ARTIST
Ryszard Jan Karon was born on May 19th, 1928, in the city of Czentochowa, Poland, the fourth child, and only son, to parents Jan and Wladyslawa Karon. His mother's maiden name was Jadczyk. The historic and architecturally beautiful City of Czentochowa, is situated 124 miles southwest of Warsaw. It is well known and revered by Catholics because of the legendary "Black Madonna painting, of Jasna Gora. His father was a trained teacher, who did not practice his profession, preferring instead to work with wood, to create many varieties of religious icons. He was also a well known baker, and hat maker……all three occupations that would be taken-up by the Karon's son in later life, in an attempt to earn a living. There is little available information on his mother, although she was known to be a particularly strict parent, at least in her son's opinion. She was allegedly associated with the fledgling Resistance Movement, following the German invasion of Poland, on September 3rd, 1939. What was known as the "AB Action" in 1940, the Nazi occupiers rounded up all the city's leaders and intelligentsia, including professors, teachers and priests, and executed them. As we have not yet been able to find the date of Mrs. Karon's death, it is possible she was executed at this time. She had been revealed as a member of the Resistance by another citizen…..possibly a neighbor. Even though her husband was a qualified teacher, he was not included in the Nazi effort to reduce political / civil disobedience.
For an unspecified period of time, the young Richard Karon, was placed in what may be described as a concentration camp, although there is no indication where it was located, or the reason he was interred. He had confessed to his wife certain incidents that had occurred, in confinement, such as a situation when his only blanket had been stolen, and he complained to a guard, asking for a new one, being told aggressively there were no replacements…..and to get out of his sight. It was known of his bowel regularity, for example, that he was particularly timely each day, which may have come from his interment, and the fact he was allowed only one trip to the latrine each day. Additionally, he despised carrot soup, because of the daily diet of a vegetable that was most abundant and affordable, even during the war. It is presumed this also had something to do with his period of incarceration. What is known, is that he had been caught stealing a loaf of bread, at one point, whether still at home or after being interred, and was threatened with immediate execution by a German guard. He was let off with a warning, that if he was seen again in the area, he would be shot dead.
After the occupation ended, following the Second World War, Ryszard (simplified in spelling, in Canada, as "Richard") lived with his sister in Poland, but there is no reason given why he left his father's home at this time. During the period of intrusive Russian influence, immediately after the war, and sensing his freedom as an artist would be crushed by a communist regime, Karon fled to Germany with a group of refugees, in company of a German national (who had been residing in Poland) named Frieda, and another woman, pregnant at the time. It is known that just before he had planned his escape, he sought-out advice from a fortune teller, about his prospects of crossing the border, unchallenged, and the woman found him so nervous, she requested he come back when he was calmer…..as she couldn't provide a reading to someone so agitated. It is likely he was worried she would report him to authorities. He never returned to the fortune teller, but he did escape successfully, crossing half-frozen rivers, and miles of difficult overland travel, eating sugar cubes they had brought along, to keep up their energy. He would later travel to France, where he was employed as a baker (burned his eyebrows off) sometime in 1948, and where he found enough work, as a hatter and potentially a laminator, to feed himself….., and eventually secure the cost of passage to Canada, sponsored through the International Refugee Organization as a displaced person. It was a derogatory reference, to be referred to as a "DP," as many refugees from Europe were called, that he found easier to live with, in a free country, than to be smothered by communist rule in his native Poland.
He landed in Halifax, Canada, in 1951. It is alleged he had emigrated with the same German woman, named Frieda, (he had escaped from Poland with) who he may have had a common law relationship, later in this country. It is known she took his last name but there were no marriage papers. In Canada, another woman, who had emigrated from Germany, (some time earlier), by the name of Kathy Rickard ( we believe this to be the correct spelling), became hugely influential in the young artist's life, encouraging him to continue painting. It is believed she was also his model for many of his early career paintings. This information is vague, but what is known, is that this same woman, continued to be a key inspiration, to the advancement of his career in art, and became friends of Karon's future wife and son, during the years of the Muskoka home-studio. There is no evidence that he ever returned to Europe, following his arrival in Canada, although he had talked of this in the 1980's. His illness later in the 1980's, limited his travel capability, and he decided against returning to Poland. His father, Jan, had wished to see his son before his own death, in 1984, but members of the family in Poland, had not contacted the artist, to relay this death-bed request.
After a period in Callander, Ontario, and a lengthy association with an art gallery in North Bay, he found a small tin-wrapped cabin, situated near Baysville that accommodated him, until 1972, when he was able to purchase the property on the opposite side of Highway 117, in the Township of Lake of Bays, where he commenced construction of a future home, and place to work on his Muskoka landscapes. It is known that he paid for some of the construction work, on the property, with a number of his framed landscapes, which will appear later in this biography, as generously provided by the gentleman who was offered them, by the artist, for work clearing the lot of trees. He married his partner, Irma in Februrary 1978, in Mexico. Their only child, Richard Sahoff Karon, was born in 1979. He was a member of the first two Muskoka Autumn Studio Tours in 1979 and 1980. He did participate in numerous outside exhibitions and sales, and at the time of writing this brief biographical overview, I was contacted by Bracebridge resident, Joyce Medley, who remembers purchasing a large landscape of a lake scene, near the Karon Studio, from the artist himself, during a sale at the Bracebridge Memorial Arena in and around 1972, during what may have been one of the annual autumn home shows, that were often held in this venue. The home and studio in vicinity of Baysville was sold in 1985, and the artist used some of the proceeds to purchase a motor home for a planned trip. He gave the motor home to his wife as a gift. The couple had separated prior to their motor trip west, which was most likely, a final attempt at reconciliation. The family would take a lengthy motor trip to British Columbia, in the summer of 1985, and there was some discussion entertained, while on the travel adventure, about moving to Western Canada for a new start. It may have been understood by the artist that this was going to happen, but Mrs. Karon decided against making the move after they returned to Ontario. When the couple sold their property in 1985, an auction sale was held to settle dispersal of some contents. The artist and family would move to Toronto, where they lived apart, Mrs. Karon having custody of their young son. Karon then opened up a small framing shop, and had a large motor home, that he often stayed in, while visiting his son at his wife's Toronto apartment. He would eventually move from Toronto, to open a framing shop in Aurora. Suffering with the advance stages of lung cancer, he managed to keep the business going until his death in March of 1987. His wife Irma had to run the business, known as Artistic Frame Shop, immediately after her husband's death, which she carried-on until well into this new century. After re-marrying Irma Karon opened a new framing store, in Mildmay, Ontario, known as "La Galeria." Richard Karon is buried in a Catholic Cemetery in Richmond Hill, Ontario.
BY TED CURRIE
In 1971 Richard Karon was part of the same gallery exhibition, in North Bay, Ontario, as legendary First Nation's Artist, Norval Morrisseau. The event was sponsored by the "K.Brothers Art Shoppe and Gallery," who he had been associated for some time, and the Algonquin Chapter of the IOOF. Karon was not only a part of the art show, but was asked to demonstrate his palette knife technique to patrons. Other participating artists for this event included Ernest Taylor, T.C. Cumming, James Lindsay, Carl Ray and Ron Hartvickson. At the same time, the artist was planning to open an art school in the North Bay area, but decided against, when he had the opportunity to purchase the studio property near Baysville. During his years in North Bay, where he had a rented house, and the use of a property (with trailer) near the Dionne Quintuplets birthplace in Callander, Nick Kripotos acted as Karon's sales agent, through the K. Brothers Gallery.
A clipping from a newspaper, in the early 1970's, pasted into the family scrapbook, contains an exhibition notice, with the following description: "beautiful Ontario landscapes captured on canvas, in the inimitable palette knife style, of Canadian Artist, Richard Karon."
Canadian Group of Seven Artist, A. Y. Jackson, in his biography, "A Painter's Country," (1958 Clarke, Irwin Co.) wrote a summary passage about his painting colleague, Tom Thomson, and his approach to both nature and his efforts to interpret what he witnessed, that seems appropriate when examining the art work of Muskoka landscape painter, Richard Karon.
"There is an old saying that 'Gazing man is keenest fed on sparing beauty.' To most people Thomson's country was a monotonous dreary waste, yet out of one little stretch he found riches undreamed of. Not knowing all the conventional definitions of beauty, he found it all beautiful; muskeg, burnt and drowned land, log chutes, beaver dams, creeks, wild rivers and placid lakes, wild flowers, northern lights, the flight of wild geese and the changing seasons from spring to summer to autumn."
Richard Karon, a prolific painter of Muskoka landscapes, also found inspiration where other artists would pass by, finding nothing remarkable to record or depict. It might even seem, looking at a large cross-section of his art work, in and around the District of Muskoka, that he purposely sought out these little over-grown alcoves of rock and forest, where shimmering pools of dark water reflected the wreathing of tall evergreens, and the old leaning birches, poet Robert Frost bestowed dignity in his poems. It was if the artist was trying to uncover some hidden mystery of the landscape, by breaking trail into these places of gentle solitude, thriving with tangled growth, and the habitat of so many woodland creatures, he witnessed frequently on this travels.
While many artists in Muskoka, have long subscribed to the commercial art ideal, creating landscapes that are alluring and beautiful in their thick wood frames, of identifiable locations, Richard Karon seemed at times in his work, to have little interest in what his colleagues in the art community were painting. Scenes of familiar and popular lakes, that were proving profitable to other local artists, on the Muskoka market, didn't appeal to Karon in the same way. He may have sacrificed a much more substantial income, by preferring instead, to depict those curious little bays and lowlands, almost lost in the tangles of spruce and cedar, and points of land overlooking the lake, with a narrow, precise focus. His work was not extravagant. He didn't over-paint, or complicate his canvases with too much, just as he didn't cheat the panels, or art patrons with too little detail. Generally, his art panels were of modest proportion, but effective in creating the sensory perception, that there was a gentle commotion going on, with insects flying about, the water rippling at, and over the moss-covered rock shore, birds chirping and squirrels shaking the overhead boughs. One might hear the croak of a frog in the shoreline grasses, or sense the wind was picking-up, by the caress against your cheek. Karon has taken his patrons on many adventures to these curious places, these portals from which to study the natural paradise, as if in the bow of a canoe, traversing the waterways, leading to his own liberation, his own escape from the rigors of commercialism in art. He wanted patrons to buy his studies of natural places. His interpretation of the seasons. He seemed to shy away from painting well known and identifiable lakes, preferring it when an admirer begged him to admit where he found such a scene.
Even when he confessed where a painting had been inspired, such that you might feel it possible to retrace his steps, you would not find the exact spot……and even if you did, you would not see precisely what he saw, that inspired the initial sketch. Karon saw it as a great privilege, of his new life, a robust career, to provide his own unique impression of a landscape or lakeshore, a winterscape or azure sky, he had witnessed, but they were not photographic in content and detail. It was his form of poetry, within paintings, that he shared with his art admirers, although he would never have admitted being influenced by literature. Instead of wasting his time reading, he painted to relax. But he was influenced, on these sketching trips, by not only what he saw, but the sounds he heard, the temperature that prevailed, and the scented wind or breeze that etched over the elevated points of land, he often found himself perched, staring over a white-capped lake, or out upon a silently reflective pond, surrounded by dark, almost threatening evergreens. His emotions were ingrained in his art pieces, and his moodiness would reflect through his cunning use of light and shadow. His ethereal joy, at experiencing a sunrise, or the subtle melancholy he felt, witnessing a sunset, prevailed in his depictions, such that a future owner can detect the rigors of a day in the life, of the artist, who painted the scene.
Richard Karon could have made a career, of painting traditional landscape panoramas, of recognized Muskoka scenes and well known landmarks. He could have greatly profited by his choice of lakes to paint. Creating art panels of lakes like Rosseau, Lake Joseph, Muskoka and Lake of Bays, would have been of infinitely more commercial success, than his studies of these landscape nooks and crannies, bogs and hillsides, and so many other unidentified bays and river-sides. He must have known this, but opted to follow his own aspirations, to represent nature, not just for its inherent majesty, but still as a place of vast mystery, he felt compelled to seek out. So many places undiscovered……locations he wanted to show us, because he found something remarkable within. A talented painter, with the intent of a poet, soul of a musician, curiosity of a philosopher, he took nothing for granted about the integrity, and responsibility of being an artist. It was as if he felt obliged to represent this region of Ontario, with an historian's dedicated respect……much as I feel honored, to be afforded this opportunity now, to profile his life as an artist. Karon handled each study of the landscape, much as if it was a visual biography of the seasons. A heartfelt mission to capture its intrigue. Incorporating into his sketches, the subtle changes of light and shadow, from sunrise, through the hours of the day, the ever-changing hues of the deep water, from black to silver, until that final glory of sun setting over the dark band of evergreen. Without a doubt, he found a liberating quality, to his nature studies, and his many forays into the wild areas of the district, must have been so profound for him, considering the bleak period he had experienced, as a young man in Nazi occupied Poland…..copying the images from old postcards he had been given by neighbors, onto scraps of paper he had been able to find, the nub of a pencil held tightly in his hand.
"The power of the imagination is put to very feeble use if it seems merely to preserve and reinforce that which already exists," A.Y. Jackson stated of his colleague Tom Thomson. "He gave us the fleeting moment, the mood, the haunting memory of things he felt."
I have no capability, other than as an admirer of art, to say, with any certainty, that Richard Karon was one of our best regional artists. This district of Ontario, from the earliest days of settlement, has been profiled by thousands of painters, including talented artists such as Thomas Mower Martin, Seymour Penson, George Thomson, his brother Tom Thomson, and members of the Canadian Group of Seven. Even in the modern era, our region has hosted so many talented painters, sculptors, artisans and craftspeople, who have taken inspiration from the hinterland, and incorporated this enthusiasm into their art forms. Muskoka has been interpreted well and abundantly throughout its own history of occupation, and it is still very much the case today, that creators in all art endeavors, are motivated by their surroundings to create and flourish doing so. I have long been a fan of the Muskoka Arts and Crafts Community, and the various other art-support groups working within the region, including the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour, Mr. Karon was once a part. It is the same environs that Richard Karon chose, over a life in the city for his family, to build a home and studio, on a picturesque acreage, near the Village of Baysville, in the Township of Lake of Bays. It was the powerful allure of the landscape, that pulled at him to explore the wilds, looking for these hidden jewels of water, rock and forest, bathed in sparkling sunlight, windswept and scented of pine and moss. He created his place amongst the evergreens, and with his wife and son, began a lengthy relationship with Muskoka.
His art panels evoke a sense of open spaces, and haunted places. They are all signature pieces, exemplifying not only his appreciation for the intricacies of nature, but his appreciation of freedom, and the right to express this liberation through art. His had not always been a life without confinement. Richard Karon understood what it meant to be denied basic rights and freedom. Even as a youngster, he was quick to learn how quickly one, in occupied Poland, could be executed just for having a look of defiance, or even profound nervousness. He knew what it was like to have a gun barrel pointed at his head. He grew up quickly. When the Germans invaded Poland, during the Second World War, death and confinement were a part of daily life. His own mother, who was suspected of being part of the Polish Resistance, was executed without anything more than a soldier's suspicion. What the young Mr. Karon, the future artist witnessed, was beyond what most of us can comprehend. Life altering events tumbling upon citizens hourly, not knowing if they might be executed next. Would they be rounded-up and loaded into boxcars, for excruciating transport to concentration camps? The lack of food a compounding misery. Bodies of friends, neighbors and friends strewn along streets and highways, frozen in the mind of the young voyeur.
This was the early life experiences of Richard Karon. He escaped death many times during his time spend under German authority. Danger was everywhere. Murder might occur with the wrong answer to a guard, or being perceived a trouble-maker to an occupier, insisting on compliance and submission. When this Muskoka artist, wandered along the shoreline, of a mirroring waterway, passing through the lowland mire of bullrushes, hitting against his shoulders, how did that early history play upon his emotions, experiencing this vast open space and unlimited freedom? Could the personal experiences of a young man, amidst such horror of war, ever truly liberate to the prevailing freedom afforded by this new life? Was nature amplified for him? For someone who had been restricted and confined, and threatened with death, what was the transference of emotion, from mind to palette knife, to canvas? Were these landscape depictions, his truthful, biographical joy, for the unfettered existence, he found in the Muskoka wilds? Could it be said, that because of the turmoil and day to day danger, of once, that he appreciated freedom more than others….who had never stared down horror as a day to day reality? How did it influence his creativity? Did the ever-wandering, unsettled landscape painter, use his career as an artist, to escape in perpetuity? If he didn't succeed at this for himself, there will be lose admirers of his work, who would re-affirm, that his paintings have long provided such pleasurable, ethereal escapes from the burdens of imposing realities.
"He had that rare inner vision that sees beauty in subjects which would not commonly be called beautiful. Through the windows of his own eyes he interpreted intrinsic truths with unerring accuracy," noted author Albert Robinson, in a 1937 biographical sketch of artist Tom Thomson. I could not find any better description, to apply to the work I have studied, painted by Muskoka's Richard Karon. "In his work he adhered to the broad base of representation, weaving a selective concrete realism into a lyrical pattern glowing with vitality and sparkling with individuality."
No comments:
Post a Comment