Natan Karczmar

Natan Karczmar (born January 3, 1933) is a French cultural event promoter, book and magazine publisher, theater producer, photographer and painter. Karczmar created many art installations, museum exhibitions and new types of cultural communication. He also published books and magazines that showcased the work of Canadian poets and sculptors. Karczmar also produced more than 100 plays in Montreal. Karczmar organized numerous events in France and Israel to bring together artists and other creative people involved in communications and the arts. Between 1953 and 1954, Karczmar worked as a journalist for the French division of Kol Israel. Between 1952 and 1954, he also worked as a musical critic for the French daily L'Echo d'Israël. In 1954, Karczmar organized an art film festival in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa,. In 1956, after moving to Montreal, Quebec, he created the Canadian Museum of Film on Art and distributed its programs to forty Canadian cities. In 1957, Karczmar started the theater of the Canadian Workshop Center at the Fine Art School of Montreal . He presented one hundred productions until 1964, combining theater, and one act plays, contemporary dance, poetry, and music. In 1958, he organized the Salon de la Jeune Peinture, sculpture and graphic arts. In 1960, Karczmar organized the Mexican Museum of Film on Art (Museo Mexicano de Peliculas sobre Arte), and in 1962, the American Institute of Film on Art. While at the Canadian Workshop Center, Karczmar published several Cahiers d'Essai and created the Editions d'Essai. The published pieces included the poems J'ai choisi la mort by Guy Lafond, as well as Ballades du temps précieux by Pierre Perrault . Karczmar also started the Editions Graph, which published albums by sculptors and printmakers from Quebec. They included Armand Vaillancourt, Albert Roussil, Anne Kahane, Marcel Braitstein, Roland Giguère, Léon Bellefleur, Stanley Lewis and André Montpetit. In 1967, Karczmar published the first book on Canadian sculpture at the Montreal World's Fair.