Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 112 Page 113 Page 114 Page 115 Page 116 Page 117 Page 118 Page 119 Page 120 Page 121 Page 122 Page 123 Page 124 Page 125 Page 126 Page 127 Page 128 Page 129 Page 130 Page 131 Page 132 Page 133 Page 134 Page 135 Page 136 Page 137 Page 138 Page 139 Page 140 Page 141 Page 142 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 146 Page 147 Page 148 Page 149 Page 150 Page 151 Page 152 Page 153 Page 154 Page 155 Page 156 Page 157 Page 158 Page 159 Page 160 Page 161 Page 162 Page 163 Page 164 Page 165 Page 166 Page 167 Page 168 Page 169 Page 170 Page 171 Page 172 Page 173 Page 174 Page 175 Page 176 Page 177 Page 178 Page 179 Page 180 Page 181 Page 182 Page 183 Page 184 Page 185 Page 186 Page 187 Page 188 Page 189 Page 190 Page 191 Page 192 Page 193 Page 194 Page 195 Page 196 Page 197 Page 198 Page 199 Page 200 Page 201 Page 202 Page 203 Page 204 Page 205 Page 206 Page 207 Page 208 Page 209 Page 210 Page 211 Page 212 Page 213 Page 214 Page 215 Page 216 Page 217 Page 218 Page 219 Page 220 Page 221 Page 222 Page 223 Page 224 Page 225 Page 226 Page 227 Page 228 Page 229 Page 230 Page 231 Page 232 Page 233 Page 234 Page 235 Page 236 Page 237 Page 238 Page 239 Page 24029 In point of historical fact, the artist’s name invites us to leap back to the 9th century, when tombstones bearing the inscription “Raab” were implanted near the River Raab in Central Europe: an ambiguous geo-political realm where nation-states’ borders were redrawn every decade. What of Simon Raab’s parents, you ask? His mother, Jeannine, took pleas- ure in the arts, and she encouraged her son to do likewise. His father, Alexandre, was a horticulturist, a teacher, and above all else a pragmatist whose world view was shaped by what he saw and did as a member of the Czech Underground in World War II. For Alexandre Raab, survival— defined in part as financial security—took precedence over any aesthetic concerns. During the Holocaust, Alexandre’s wife took refuge in Switzerland, but many members of the Raab family were less fortunate. His father’s par- ents—Simon’s grandparents—both died in Auschwitz. Four of Alexandre’s siblings survived, but one brother died laboring in the coal mines of Alsace-Lorraine. Alexandre’s older sister, Olga, perished in Auschwitz, along with her husband and her child. And so, when he initially began to make art, Simon Raab used charred wood and epoxy to create glimmering black sculptures like Mother and Daughter in Dachau. There are certain themes—including this great 20th century crime—that art can neither fathom, nor ignore. Nothing can honor the horror and inhu- manity of the actual event. Probably films come closest to the terrible truth. Documentary footage, which is nearly unwatchable, reminds us that the unimaginable did indeed happen—an unexpected necessity in an era of Holocaust denial. Feature films such as The Diary of Anne Frank and Schindler’s List give a human face to millions of victims, and to those who risked all to save a few. Counterbalancing Alexander’s formidable presence, his brother—Simon’s Uncle Ernest—looms large in our story. “Uncle” is factually correct, but in spirit, and in the artist’s own words, Ernest was Simon’s “second father.” He was also a sculptor of some renown, best known as the creator of the Holocaust memorial in Toronto. Ernest instilled a love of art in his nephew, and he inspired an unspoken promise that Simon Raab made to himself before he became the star student in McGill University’s Graduate program in Mechanical Engineering. He vowed that one day he too would make art. The book in your hand evidences that promised fulfilled. As it happened, on the very day that Simon Raab stepped into his first art class—a sculpture class in Orlando, Florida—the seventy-one-year-old Ernest Raab put on his Sabbath suit and a prayer shawl, and lay down on the bed in his Toronto apartment. Stricken with leukemia and agonized by spinal surgery, he overdosed on Oxycontin. One day earlier, his nephew had officially resigned as the head of Faro Technologies, a three- person company that had grown into a global enterprise staffed by 750 employees. In the Renaissance, when art and science routinely went hand in hand, painters were inventors who probed the visible world in order to under- stand it. Think Leonardo. These days, despite tell-tale phrases like “med- ical arts,” uninformed conventional wisdom tends to regard the studio and the laboratory as separate and mutually exclusive realms. Simon Raab spent much of his adult life shuttling back and forth between labs and cor- porate boardrooms; and thanks to these combined efforts, his name made the pages of Fortune Magazine and Business Week. Absent any trace of false humility, he says that his greatest sense of accomplishment came from patients who expressed gratitude for the inventions that saved their lives. Such accolades offered concrete proof that as a son, he had fulfilled his practical-minded father’s dreams. And they freed Simon Raab to pur- sue his own dream of becoming an artist, a dream which had been deferred for three decades.