Canada’s Figurative Expressionist
Sam Borenstein was born in 1908 in Kalvaria, Lithuania. He died in 1969 in Montreal, Canada.
Borenstein discovered his passion for painting as a young adult. He was largely self-taught, studying art books and attending exhibits at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The European artists of the early 1900’s: Van Gogh, Soutine, Vlaminck, Kokoschka, and Chagall, were his inspiration.
His early work, dating from the 1930’s to the late 1940’s were careful studies of urban scenes and portraits of family, colleagues and friends. They were thinly painted in oils with muted colours. He graduated into his signature style around 1950, discovering how to convey movement through brushstrokes, and how to create impasto textures with the palette knife, and how to heighten the emotions through bold and imaginative use of colour.
EARLY SUNFLOWERS
“Art is my religion. Just as one prays, so does one paint – for spiritual satisfaction.”
Sam Borenstein
He captured movement in the still, like the Action Painters
A unique aspect of Borenstein’s oeuvre is his ability to capture movement in the still painting. His gestures while he painted are imprinted forever in paint on the canvas. In his landscapes he succeeds in conveying wind rushing through trees, blowing snow and swirling clouds. In his winter scenes one feels the crisp cold air. In his summer scenes one feels the heat and humidity.
ST LUCIE IN MOTION
Notable is Borenstein’s use of impasto and palette knife. “There is a kind of generosity with the paint, where the artist applies colour, thick colour, slashing it on, moving it around….” Quote by Leo Rosshandler from SAM BORENSTEIN, published by McClelland and Stewart ©1978.
SUMMER LAURENTIANS
“The Canadian art scene, with its compulsive effort to stay neat and dignified, desperately needs untrammelled, unorthodox painters like Borenstein.”
Henry Lehmann, Art Critic for The Montreal Star ©1978
A Synesthetic Experience
Even though paintings are visual, to experience a Borenstein painting ‘in person’ is more than visual. It is a synesthetic experience, where you feel immersed, and many emotions and all the senses (sight, touch, sound, taste, smell) are triggered. Viewing his paintings in person is a deeply engaging visceral experience.
MY THREE CHILDREN
His approach to colour was imaginative and bold, like the Fauves.
Borenstein’s paintings are also unique in terms of his Fauvist approach to colour. His colour palette is bold, impulsive, imaginative. He often uses pure unmixed colour, straight from the tube onto the canvas.
SUNSET STE-AGATHE
Expressing his emotions through painting was essential, like the Expressionists.
For Borenstein, expressing emotion was key and thus the emotion is dialled up and intense, placing him firmly in the Expressionist tradition. If Riopelle is Quebec’s Abstract Expressionist, then it can be said that Borenstein is Quebec’s Figurative Expressionist. His landscapes express the ideas of not only the ‘beauty of nature’ but also prophetically the ‘insurmountable power of nature’. And, from the vantage of our present-day experiences with climate change, this power is awe-inspiring and even overwhelming and foreboding.
RED VIOLIN
“The flowers are moving as if they are growing in the garden. A play of sinuous stems and flaring yellow blossoms reminiscent of flickering flames, the painting is composed through brushstrokes moving in a dance of paint,”
Professor Loren Lerner, SAM BORENSTEIN RETROSPECTIVE, MMFA Publisher
©2004.
Borenstein invented a language unique to himself, a language that is timeless, universal, and poetic. His paintings communicate deeply on many levels.
LAURENTIAN STORM