Cavouk at his studio on Bloor Street in the Colonnade c1974 – courtesy of Toronto Star
Toronto. In 1995 we lost three from the photographic community: a collector, a store owner, and a professional photographer. The ‘in memoriam’ for Harold McNutt (Bill Belier) and Erik Olesen (Ev Roseborough) are already posted. The third loss that year was Photographer Artin Cavoukian (Ev Roseborough).
While the writer of Artin’s notice remains anonymous, it is most likely our modest editor of the day who tried to avoid having too many articles attributed to himself. As to ‘Cavouk’ as he was known, Ev writes, “Operating from an extremely small studio in the Colonnades in mid-Toronto, Artin Cavoukian, otherwise known as Cavouk. practised his art following an exodus from Egypt with his wife and family in 1958.
“The tiny studio, resplendent with fine furniture and drapery, which also became his properties, displayed magnificent colour prints of the Queen, Pearson, Gandhi, de Gaulle and other dignitaries, and citizens, all of which bore evidence of his artistic and technical expertise.
“His Linhof, brought from Egypt, stood significantly in a corner, draped in its focussing cloth. A pioneer in colour portraiture, he opened the first colour lab in the Middle East in 1953 but left everything behind in the flight to Canada.
His wife and assistant, Lucie. died at the age of 72 on October 26, 1995, twelve hours before her husband, who was 80.
