“He could transform a country village into a painting blazing with color.” Borenstein’s daughter, Joyce, said of her father.

Painted with Borenstein’s characteristic bold brush work and vibrant palette including deep blues, and fiery oranges, this is an important example of his expressionist approach to the landscape.

Influenced by Van Gogh and Soutine, Borenstein was a painter of “wrenchingly strong colors and writhing shapes,” as Montreal art critic Lawrence Sabbath has written. He worked from the heart and was totally dedicated to his craft.

Born in 1908 in Kalvaria, Lithuania, Borenstein was the son of a rabbinic scholar whose wife died of influenza in 1918, the year of the great plague. The family immigrated to Canada in 1921 by way of Danzig and Liverpool. Dropping out of school, Borenstein toiled in a garment factory and learned to be a cutter. Not cut out for the shmatta business, he enrolled in art classes at the Monument National. Often, he spent his days sketching on Mount Royal or St. Helen's Island. In 1938, he met Judith, who sustained him through years of rejection and disappointment. She was a lifelong admirer, being impressed by the honesty and spontaneity of his paintings. They spent summers in an old school house in the Laurentians, and in winter, he could be seen with a palette painting street scenes of Montreal.

For a rewarding visit to the world of Sam Borenstein, watch the NFB film, The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein , directed by Joyce Borenstein. Her 1992 short documentary was nominated for an Oscar that year.

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