Sam Borenstein

During his forty-year career he painted numerous scenes of Montreal and Laurentian villages and Quebec landscapes bustling with human activity, using brilliant colours and exuberant brushwork.

Born in Kalvarija, Lithuania, Russian Empire[2] in 1908, Borenstein immigrated to Canada in 1921, and moved to Montreal with his father and one of his sisters.

[3] Although he had little formal training, Borenstein took evening art classes, studying sculpture with Elzéar Soucy and drawing with Adam Sheriff Scott and John Young Johnstone, and associating with local artists Alexandre Bercovitch, Fritz Brandtner, Herman Heimlich, and Louis Muhlstock.

[2] During a six-month painting trip to Brittany in 1939, Borenstein saw the work of painters such as Vincent van Gogh.

His paintings also were included in the Jewish Painters of Montreal exhibition at the McCord Museum/The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in 2008.