A tribute to the Canadian North, a meditation on artistic creation, and a window onto the ideological musings of Canada’s greatest Structurist artist.
In celebration of his 100th birthday, Eli Bornstein, in collaboration with author and curator Roald Nasgaard, has published a stunning work of personal reflection on a most transformative time in his life and career. Eli Bornstein: Arctic Journals, 1986 and 1987 is a tribute to the Canadian North, a meditation on artistic creation, and a window onto the ideological musings of Canada’s greatest Structurist artist.
Devoid of the mythologizing other artists have given their writing on the North, Bornstein’s journals are introspective, insightful, and sometimes funny. Comprised of personal journal entries from two northern trips he took with photographer Hans Dommasch—along with watercolour studies, Structurist reliefs, and a personal collection of poems—Bornstein’s work is a vital reminder of our outsized influence over the natural world and an invitation to recognize our need for nature in our life and in our art.
Bornstein's publication is the culmination of a life’s work on reconciling himself with nature and the understanding our very existence.
Author Biography:
Eli Bornstein, artist, teacher, writer, publisher was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1922. Starting in the mid-1950s, while teaching art at the University of Saskatchewan, he became one of the leading practitioners of Structurist art, which evolved from his study of the Modernist tradition from Impressionism and Cézanne and through to Russian Constructivism, and Mondrian. Although he builds his Structurist reliefs using the abstract language of colour and three-dimensional geometric form, they are dedicated to the study of nature and its biological processes.
In 1960 he founded the internationally circulating periodical, The Structurist, published out of the University of Saskatchewan, to which he regularly contributed art historical and theoretical essays. The Structurist ran for 50 years (Nos. 1–50, 1960–2010), with an anniversary issue (Nos. 51/52, 2019/2020). Over the years he has also completed major commissions for public art located in Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg and Bremen, Germany. Eli Bornstein, artist, teacher, writer, publisher was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1922. Starting in the mid-1950s, while teaching art at the University of Saskatchewan, he became one of the leading practitioners of Structurist art, which evolved from his study of the Modernist tradition from Impressionism and Cézanne and through to Russian Constructivism, and Mondrian. Although he builds his Structurist reliefs using the abstract language of colour and three-dimensional geometric form, they are dedicated to the study of nature and its biological processes.
In 1960 he founded the internationally circulating periodical, The Structurist, published out of the University of Saskatchewan, to which he regularly contributed art historical and theoretical essays. The Structurist ran for 50 years (Nos. 1–50, 1960–2010), with an anniversary issue (Nos. 51/52, 2019/2020). Over the years he has also completed major commissions for public art located in Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg and Bremen, Germany. Eli Bornstein, artist, teacher, writer, publisher was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1922. Starting in the mid-1950s, while teaching art at the University of Saskatchewan, he became one of the leading practitioners of Structurist art, which evolved from his study of the Modernist tradition from Impressionism and Cézanne and through to Russian Constructivism, and Mondrian. Although he builds his Structurist reliefs using the abstract language of colour and three-dimensional geometric form, they are dedicated to the study of nature and its biological processes.
In 1960 he founded the internationally circulating periodical, The Structurist, published out of the University of Saskatchewan, to which he regularly contributed art historical and theoretical essays. The Structurist ran for 50 years (Nos. 1–50, 1960–2010), with an anniversary issue (Nos. 51/52, 2019/2020). Over the years he has also completed major commissions for public art located in Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg and Bremen, Germany. Roald Nasgaard is a teacher, writer and curator. He began his career at the University of Guelph and then served as Curator of Contemporary Art and Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario. He is Professor Emeritus in Art History at Florida State University. The publication of A Very Sacred Experience brings together his long-standing commitments to both abstract art and landscape painting. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Abstract Painting in Canada. His major exhibitions and accompanying books include The Mystic North: Symbolist Landscape Painting in Northern Europe and North America 1890–1940; the first Gerhard Richter retrospective in North America; The Automatiste Revolution: Montreal 1941–1960; and The Plasticiens and Beyond: Montreal 1955–1970. More recently he co-curated Mystical Landscapes for the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Musée d’Orsay, and Higher States: Lawren Harris and his American Contemporaries for the McMichael Canadian Collection. His book on the Montreal artist, Charles Gagnon, and an e-book on Eli Bornstein for the Art Canada Institute are currently in production.
