Moses (Moe) Reinblatt

Artist Bio: Moe Reinblatt (1917-1979)

Reinblatt was born in Montreal, the son of a Bessarabian rug maker. He showed an aptitude for art while young and studied with Anne Savage while he attended Baron Byng High School. Later he studied with Alexandre Bercovitch, while studying in Montreal at the Montreal Museum School of Fine Art and Design. The first exhibition of his art was held in Montreal in 1936, while he was still a student. Following his studies, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942, where his artistic abilities were discovered by authorities and he was appointed as an Official War Artist in 1944. In 1945, he left the RCAF and joined the staff at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and Design where he taught drawing and art. During his free time, he worked on his painting and sculpture and graphic art. At this time, he met two other teachers from the Montreal Museum School; Goodridge Roberts and Eldon Grier. The three artists worked together and discussed their differing approaches to the new types of art sweeping Canada at that time. Reinblatt’s earlier work, during the 1940’s and 1950’s had a strong social consciousness and he depicted the poor and ‘down-and-out’ in Montreal. His preferred medium in these years was dry-point etching. In the 1960’s and 1970’s he moved away from printmaking exclusively and while he still painted figurative subjects, he painted more in oils, depicting landscapes in monochromatic tones.