• Sorel Etrog was a preeminent Canadian sculptor. His oeuvre spans painting, printmaking, filmmaking, plays and poetry, but he was particularly...

    Sorel Etrog carving Waterbury, 1961, in his New York studio, 1961. © Leslie Shergin.

    Sorel Etrog was a preeminent Canadian sculptor. His oeuvre spans painting, printmaking, filmmaking, plays and poetry, but he was particularly renowned for his work in sculpture. The artist was an important influence on the growth of Canadian interest in sculpture during the latter half of the twentieth century, and his work continues to have a strong presence in the country today.  

     

    Born in Romania, Etrog and his family emigrated to Israel in 1950, where he studied art at the Tel Aviv Art Institute. He later went on to study at the Brooklyn Museum Art School in the United States before moving to Canada.  

  • In 1966 Etrog represented Canada at the Venice Biennale, along with Alex Colville and Yves Gaucher. In 1968 he designed...
    Sorel Etrog, Mother and Child, 1960-62, in Venice, 1966, Photographer Unknown.

    In 1966 Etrog represented Canada at the Venice Biennale, along with Alex Colville and Yves Gaucher. In 1968 he designed the Canadian film award, “the Etrog” (later renamed “the Genie”). He was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1955 and appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France in the following year. 

     

    Although Etrog’s body of work is diverse, he maintained a consistent interest in exploring the human condition. The sculptures produced during a career that spanned over 50 years reveal the artist’s interest in the abstracted human figure and the tension between organic and mechanical forms, movement and stasis, life and death.  

  • Etrog’s earliest works consisted of irregularly shaped paintings made of geometric wooden objects with raised elements. These “Painted Constructions” reveal...
    Sorel Etrog, Waterbury, Bronze, 28.5" in, Edition of 7, 1962. © The Estate of Sorel Etrog.

    Etrog’s earliest works consisted of irregularly shaped paintings made of geometric wooden objects with raised elements. These “Painted Constructions” reveal the influence of the European avant-garde, particularly Cubist Collage. In 1959, he created his first sculptures - a transition influenced by the African and Oceanic artworks in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum. The biomorphic forms of his early sculptures also indicate the influences of Constantin Brancusi, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.  
     
    A significant part of Etrog's oeuvre exists between abstraction and figuration. These works explore the human condition through a combination of mechanical visual vocabularies (links, hinges, screws and bolts) and organic forms. The representation of human experience through these deeply intertwined elements can be contextualized within a post-war climate of existential philosophies, as European writers (Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, etc.) worked to redefine what it meant to be human.  
     

    Etrog’s work is held in numerous permanent collections including those of the Tate Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Canada.