Into the Light: The Healing Art of Kalman Aron

Into the Light: The Healing Art of Kalman Aron by Magee, Susan Beilby. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781555953850.

A six-year-old girl sits for a pastel portrait by an unknown immigrant artist... Fifty years later, he asks her to write his story. INTO THE LIGHT is a profound, visual story of hope, courage and healing in the face of evil. It relates the epic life journey of Kalman Aron as he emerges from the ashes of the Holocaust to explore the nature of humankind, his own humanity and the mystery of life - all on canvas. Born in Riga, Latvia in 1924, Kalman Aron began drawing at age three. At seven, he had his first gallery show of drawings, which sold out on opening day. The Latvian president commissioned the boy to paint his official portrait and arranged for Aron to attend Rigas Academy of Fine Arts. Three years later, in 1941, the Nazis invaded Latvia, massacring many thousands of Jews - including his parents. Over the course of four years, he was imprisoned in seven different camps. Aron became an astute observer of human nature; he drew portraits of guards who sometimes paid him with morsels of food that helped him not starve to death. After the war, he was admitted to the Vienna Fine Arts Academy, where he received his Masters in Fine Art, then left Europe to settle in Los Angeles in 1949. Kalman Arons early post-war pictures darkly project Holocaust horrors, then in the slow course of healing and freeing himself from his past, Arons work gains poise and an inner perspective that radiates new and ever-changing vitality. He becomes well-known for his portraits, vibrant landscapes and intriguing studies of people in his unique style, "psychological realism." His work catches the attention of Hollywood celebrities and connoisseurs alike, and commissions arrive from such notables as Ronald Reagan, Henry Miller and André Previn.