PROVENANCE
Louis and Rose Melzack Collection
Private Collection, London, England

LITERATURE
William Kuhns and Léo Rosshandler, Sam Borenstein, 1978, page 39

Sam Borenstein offered a unique painterly perspective on the Canadian landscape and cityscape. He was particularly influenced by the explosive, chaotic work of European masters Maurice Utrillo, Chaim Soutine and Vincent van Gogh. In relation to such inspirations, Borenstein wrote in his autobiographical notes: “It dawned on me that it would be necessary for me to create an alphabet and a language, a language that I also discovered would be foreign to anyone but me...People began to say he has talent but is uncontrolled. How does one control himself when one is so enthusiastic about what one sees?” By the mid-1940s, Borenstein was beginning to distance himself from his earlier representational works and develop this new “alphabet and language”. In this work, his excitement for his surroundings is obvious through the passionate – almost flamboyant – brush-strokes and ignited colour palette. A painterly earthquake is starting to rumble beneath the surface as the figures, trees and streets begin to sway. A Montreal Street serves as an important pre-cursor to the wildly Expressionist paintings that would emerge in the following years.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars