GALERIE ERIC KLINKHOFF
FIVE PAINTINGS BY SAM BORENSTEIN (1908-1969)
October 22 - 30, 2025
“Art is my religion. Just as one prays, so does one paint – for spiritual satisfaction.” Sam Borenstein, Artist.
“The Canadian art scene, with its compulsive effort to stay neat and dignified, desperately needs untrammelled, unorthodox painters…” Henry Lehmann, Art Critic for The Montreal Star ©1978, referring to paintings by Sam Borenstein.
The Walter Klinkhoff Gallery began representing Borenstein in the late 1950’s. The Eric Klinkhoff Gallery is proud to carry on this tradition by presenting five important works by Borenstein from October 22nd to 30th 2025.
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. See RED VIOLIN.
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. See STE-LUCIE IN MOTION. 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 the humidity.
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.
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 senses (sight, touch, sound, taste, smell) are triggered. Viewing his paintings in person is a deeply engaging visceral experience. See MY THREE CHILDREN.
Borenstein’s paintings are also unique in terms of his Fauvist approach to colour. His colour palette is bold, impulsive, imaginative. He sometimes uses pure unmixed colour, straight from the tube onto the canvas. See SUNSET STE-AGATHE.
His landscapes prophetically express the ideas of not only the ‘beauty of nature’ but also 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. See LAURENTIAN STORM.
Borenstein invented a language unique to himself and yet this language is timeless, universal, poetic, and it communicates deeply on many levels.
Seeing the paintings in person is a must. Come to the Eric Klinkhoff Gallery from Wednesday October 22nd to Thursday October 30th 2025.
SAM BORENSTEIN (1908-1969)
Red Violin, circa 1950
Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in.
Exhibitions:
Sam Borenstein Retrospective Exhibition, Sir George Williams University, Montreal, 1966;
Sam Borenstein Retrospective Exhibition, Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, 1979, no. 14;
Sam Borenstein, touring retrospective exhibition organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2005-2006 & reproduced in the accompanying exhibition catalogue, MMFA ©2005;
Sam Borenstein Retrospective Exhibition, Yeshiva University Museum, New York City, 2011;
This painting appears in the film The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein, National Film Board of Canada ©1992.
In this painting, Borenstein portrays himself overwhelmed by the power of art represented by the giant violin. He had dreamed, even as a boy, of becoming an artist. The Red Violin has surreal elements, combining landscape, portrait and still-life. He conveys intense emotion, in his Figurative Expressionist style.
SAM BORENSTEIN (1908-1969)
Ste. Lucie in Motion, 1964
Oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in.
Exhibitions:
Sam Borenstein Retrospective Exhibition, Sir George Williams University, Montreal, 1966;
Sam Borenstein, touring retrospective exhibition organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2005-2006 & reproduced in the accompanying exhibition catalogue, MMFA ©2005;
Sam Borenstein Retrospective Exhibition, Yeshiva University Museum, New York City, 2011;
Reproduced:
Kuhns, William & Rosshandler, Leo. Sam Borenstein, published by McClelland & Stewart ©1978.
This painting appears in the film The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein, National Film Board of Canada ©1992.
In this painting, Borenstein portrays Ste-Lucie village as dream-like, imagined. The landscape seems to be floating upward through the sky, on wind-blown clouds.
SAM BORENSTEIN (1908-1969)
Laurentian Storm, circa 1955
Oil on canvas, 22 x 36 in.
This painting is a rare masterpiece, rare in that it has never been seen publicly. With this painting, Borenstein is in full command of his signature style of Figurative Expressionism. With brush strokes and palette knife, he conveys the movement of the wind. One can almost hear and see the wind swirling through the trees ripping the leaves off the branches, and hear and see the thunder and lightning announcing an imminent storm.
SAM BORENSTEIN (1908-1969)
Ste. Agathe Sunset, 1962
Oil on canvas, 34 x 42 in.
Exhibitions:
Sam Borenstein Retrospective Exhibition, Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, 1979, no. 12.
This painting appears in the film The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein, National Film Board of Canada ©1992.
Borenstein’s Fauvist approach to colour is evident here. The setting sun is behind the artist and reflected in the road and houses by the pinks, oranges, yellows, and purples.
SAM BORENSTEIN (1908-1969)
My Three Children, 1959
Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in.
Reproduced:
Kuhns, William & Rosshandler, Leo. Sam Borenstein, published by McClelland & Stewart ©1978.
This painting appears in the film The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein, National Film Board of Canada ©1992.
Again Borenstein combines still-life with portraiture and landscape, as in RED VIOLIN. The painting pulses with bold reds and blues, paint used straight from the tube and onto the canvas. To quote Henry Lehmann, Art Critic for the Montreal Gazette, July 2005, “Brought to mind is the work of Chaim Soutine, the great painter of a religiously charged world unfettered by the laws of physics, Borenstein repeatedly beams us back to the present with his superb visual pyrotechnics.”
