She’s been an artist for 50 years but it wasn’t until the last decade that Joy Caros began p
ainting the portraits of the Israeli presidents and prime ministers. Last month she donated them to the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, and those portraits, which arrived in Israel a couple of weeks ago, will soon be on permanent display in the Knesset.
Caros couldn’t be happier. “This is the ultimate honour for me,” she said in an interview in Vancouver. “All the dignitaries that visit Israel will see the portraits of the men who made Israel, and that’s important. Israel needs to have its prime ministers up there on the government walls, signifying that this is a valid country. That’s what this collection stands for.”<
Caros and her husband, James Rawlings, are strong supporters of Israel. “We believe G-d gave that land to the Jewish people and it should stay that way,” Rawlings says. Caros agrees: “I think Netanyahu is awesome and I’m anxious to meet him,” she says. “I think he’s the best thing that happened to Israel, and he’ll fight for the land.”
Caros may have an opportunity to meet Netanyahu when she travels to Israel in May 2010 and is honoured at an event held by Canadian Friends of Hebrew University. To date she has painted 18 portraits for Israel and still has another three to go. Each one takes approximately a month to complete and the portraits were independently valued at $9,500 each by the Petley-Jones Gallery in Vancouver.
The portraits were created as a gift for Israel, the majority of them completed between 1998 and 2000, Carols said. “I felt this was something I could do for Israel, because they didn’t have portraits of their prime ministers and presidents like most countries do,” she explains. “My husband and I are Zionists and we love Israel, so I thought, let me do this as a gift to the country.”
>Jews have helped her throughout her career, Caros added. Stanley Kramer commissioned her to paint the characters of the film “It’s a Mad, Mad World” in the 1960s and in Vancouver she has worked closely with Joseph Cohen of Sony, as well as families including the Segals, Wosks, Adlers and Malicks. She’s done portraiture for Hollywood Stars like Spencer Tracy, Jonathan Winters and Sammy Davis and is presently doing a series on the chefs of Vancouver.
Born in Trail, BC and mother to seven children, Carols started out sketching pastel portraits of Vancouver diners while they waited for their tables. Her work has taken her all over the world and she lived in California, the Caribbean, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, France and Israel before returning to Vancouver to be closer to her 18 grandchildren.
Still, this octogenarian is eager to keep at her art and plans to continue painting and travelling in the years to come. “Nowadays more and more people want portraits because an artist can breathe life into a portrait and make the subject more alive than photography can,” she says. “I’ve met some wonderful people all over the world doing this,” she adds. “The bible says your talent will put you before kings, and that is what’s happened.”
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