Written by Mike Boone Thursday, 10 February 2011 22:45

Painter Sam Borenstein ~ Canada's “Authentic Expressionist” ~ Exhibits In NYC At Last !

Montreal, Canada - An exhibit that opened 6 February 2011 at the Yeshiva University Museum, in Manhattan, is the latest step in a long effort to make Sam Borenstein a familiar name to art lovers everywhere. Twin sisters Joyce and Erin Borenstein have worked tirelessly to promote the reputation of their father, who died in 1961. In 2005, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presented a retrospective of Borenstein's paintings. The exhibit travelled to the University of Toronto and to Mount Allison University. Nice university exhibition, but it isn't New York. And getting Borenstein's work to the Big Apple has not been easy. "I didn't think a New York exhibit was going to happen," Joyce Borenstein says. "My sister is a more optimistic person and more courageous - maybe a bit more like my father than I am. She was sure we'd have a New York exhibit." Erin Borenstein was right. It took a while, but Sam Borenstein and the Colours of Montreal has made it to NYC. Joyce Borenstein thinks her late father was a genius. She has inherited this assessment from her mother, Judith Aron, who championed her husband's work and persuaded Joyce to make The Colours of My Father, a 1993 Oscar-nominated animation film. Born in Lithuania, Borenstein immigrated to Canada in 1921 and during a forty-year career painted numerous scenes of Montreal, Laurentian villages and Quebec landscapes bustling with human activity, using brilliant colours and exuberant brushwork. He was 61 when he died of cancer in 1969.

His widow did not live to see the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts opening, but the exhibit had been scheduled when she died in 2003, knowing that Sam Borenstein would be getting the recognition he deserved in the city that was, along with the Laurentian Mountains in Quebec, his muse. After the 2005 tour, the Borensteins hoped to take the exhibit to Western Canada. That didn't happen, so the Borenstein sisters began to think bigger than Winnipeg and Calgary. "We thought his work would do well in New York," Borenstein said, "because it's bold, a bit brash, exciting. It's like the city - larger than life." Making a great idea happen was a challenge. The Borenstein sisters embarked on a five-year quest that has had its ups, downs and detours. Mark Mendelson, a Montrealer who got his master's degree in social work at Yeshiva University, loves Sam Borenstein's painting. He suggested pitching an exhibit to the school. Borenstein went to New York with the catalogue of the MFA show and “The Colours of My Father”, her Academy Award-nominated film. The museum's decision-makers were keen. But then the administration changed, and Yeshiva University went through a period of turmoil because its endowment fund had been fleeced by crooked financier Bernard Madoff. Once the dust had settled, the new Yeshiva University Museum director was a former Montrealer, Jacob Wisse, a fan of Sam Borenstein's work. It took some time to put the funding together, but "once (Yeshiva University) raised the money, everything happened very quickly" and the exhibit got the green light in December 2010.

Joyce Borenstein spent a hectic month learning the techniques of transporting art and crating the paintings. The exhibit is the first Borenstein retrospective outside of Canada and includes 35 paintings. Many are from the family, but the exhibit includes paintings on loan from collections as far afield as Denver. In explaining the spirit that animates Sam Borenstein's work and her own, Joyce likes to quote Vincent van Gogh: "Art is the raft that will take you safely to shore." “Sam Borenstein and the Colours of Montreal” runs until May 8 at the Yeshiva University Museum, in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. Since its founding in 1973, Yeshiva University Museum’s changing exhibits have celebrated the culturally diverse intellectual and artistic achievements of 3,000 years of Jewish experience. The Museum provides a window into Jewish culture around the world and throughout history through its acclaimed multi-disciplinary exhibitions and award-winning publications. By educating audiences of all ages with dynamic interpretations of Jewish life, past and present, along with wide-ranging cultural offerings and programs, the Museum attracts young and old, Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. Visit the museum's website at .... http://www.yumuseum.org

Reported by Mike Boone - Montreal Gazette