Sam Borenstein (Samuel Borenstein)

1908-1969

Sam Borenstein was born in Kalvaria, Lithuania. He was the youngest of fifteen children. His mother died of influenza when Borenstein was nine. With his mother gone, his brothers and sisters moving out on their own and his father too occupied to give him any special attention, Borenstein felt very much alone. This loneliness had a lasting effect on him throughout his life.

In 1921, at the age of thirteen, he immigrated to Montreal with his sister and his father. Four of his brothers were already in Canada. He moved in with one of his brothers and was enrolled in a local school in a class of younger students to catch up. After a year, Borenstein, a difficult youth, was shipped to Ottawa as an apprentice to a furrier for the next two years. He came back to Montreal and worked in a garment factory, work that he would hold periodically for the next sixteen years. He taught himself to read English and in the years that followed became a voracious reader. His lack of formal schooling also kept him out of the École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal so he took night courses. A friend took Borenstein along with him to the Monument National a few nights for sculpture classes which led him to being admitted to study sculpture under Elzéar Sousy. He also spent some time studying under Canadian painters Adam Sherriff-Scott and John Y. Johnstone, who allowed him to come to his studio for Saturday afternoon sketching sessions. 

 In 1930 he began to sketch and paint in earnest. In the years that followed he worked with, and received constructive criticism from Goodridge Roberts, Alexander Bercovitch, Fritz Brandtner, Louis Mulhstock, Heman Heimlich and Adam Sherriff-Scott. He discovered the work of Van Gogh, Vlaminck and later Soutine, and was very much influenced by them.

In the Depression Borenstein lost his job at the garment factory. During his unemployment he experienced many hardships at times: sleeping outdoors, being penniless and eating in a soup kitchen and relying on others for shelter. Luckily for him an accident in the factory involving eight cutters brought him back to his job. In 1933 he got married but the marriage turned sour and ended up in divorce due to Borenstein’s will not to give up on art. He believed in himself and kept working at his painting. He added to his periodic employment income by selling paintings to his boss and co-workers. He also took his works under his arm to the offices of dentists and doctors.

In 1937 he met Judith Aron through Canadian artist Ernst Neumann at the Art Association of Montreal. They married in 1938 and the year after, they sailed for Europe. They stayed in Paris and Brittany where Borenstein painted until learning of the prospect of war. Being advised by the Canadian Embassy to leave France, they left for England. In London, Borenstein sold a couple of paintings but running low on money, they eventually went back to Montreal.

On his return, Borenstein held his first solo show in a Montreal gallery. No sales were made but critics and artists began to take serious notice of his work, as he had been exhibiting with the Royal Canadian Academy shows since 1935. He also participated in the Exhibition of Canadian Art organised by the National Gallery of Canada at the New-York World Fair in 1939.

In 1940 he became a member of the Contemporary Art Society and at about this time he began painting in the Laurentian region, an area north of Montreal where he would start going more often after buying a car in 1946. He also visited the Gaspé Peninsula region in 1945 and 1946. At this time in his career, he mainly exhibited in group shows at the Art Association of Montreal but sales were slow and money was still scarce.

After his son’s birth in 1947, he increased his income by converting his car into a taxi cab and worked as an independent driver for nearly a year until a friend suggested that he buy and sell artworks from other artists. He rented a space in 1948 where he sold antiques and paintings but after only eight months, he closed the shop being unable to deal with the customers.

During the fifties, Borenstein kept painting, exhibiting and selling works here and there. In 1953 he participated to a group show at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Following the birth of his two daughters in the mid-fifties, Borenstein increased his income by selling forty paintings to a Montreal shop owner thus allowing the Borensteins to find a flat in a middle class neighbourhood. Borenstein also took drives with his family to the Laurentians where he painted. In 1958, he rented an old school at Lac Brûlé in the Laurentians and painted there and elsewhere in the area. He later bought the old School in 1963 and started to spend more time painting in the Laurentians.

Still in 1958 Borenstein met A.Y. Jackson and they became good friends. Borenstein was visited frequently by A.Y. Jackson to his Laurentian house and for the next ten years, they went out on painting excursions in the area. It was also during this period that Borenstein started having solo shows at a Montreal gallery (1958-1962). By now, Borenstein had a circle of good friends who were among the prominent in Canadian art: Sylvia Ary, Lorne H. Bouchard, Herman Heimlich, A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, Henri Masson, Robert Pilot, Goodridge Roberts and Ernst Neumann.

In 1962 he took teacher training with Arthur Lismer to enable himself to teach patients at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. In 1966 a retrospective show was held at Concordia University where over fifty of his early and later paintings were exhibited. Another solo show at a Montreal gallery followed the retrospective that same year.

In 1967, Borenstein learned that he had prostate cancer. Nonetheless he kept painting vigorously until his death in Montreal at the age of 61. After his death, a retrospective show was held at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in 1974. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts also held a retrospective show in 2005.

Collections:

- Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, QC)
- National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, ON)
- Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, ON)
- Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (Quebec, QC)
- Art Gallery of Hamilton (Hamilton, ON)
- Winnipeg Art Gallery (Winnipeg, MN)
- Hishhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institute (Washington D.C., USA)
- Concordia University (Montreal, QC)
- National Portrait Gallery (Ottawa, ON)
- Jewish General Hospital (Montreal, QC)

Affiliations:

- Contemporary Art Society (1940)
- Quebec Modern Group