"Cahén’s brilliant success as a graphic artist with the Montreal Standard and later with Maclean's Magazine started a revolution in commercial illustration in Canada which has had wide significance.

As a catalyst, Cahén played his greatest personal role. His freshness and freedom, his sophistication, his feeling for speed and change, his financial success, and above all his high professional integrity, had a stunning impact on the young artists of drab, post-war Toronto.

To the force of his personality can be traced directly much of the dynamism and vitality which is the hallmark of so much Toronto painting. It is fitting, therefore, that the Academy honour Oscar Cahén through the awarding of the 1975 RCA Medal".

Ann H.J. Nelles, Executive Director
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, 1975