Drawn from the MacLaren’s Permanent Collection, this exhibition presents works on paper by Romanian-born Israeli-Canadian artist Sorel Etrog (1933–2014). Etrog was a survivor of Nazi Germany’s occupation of Romania. Anatomy of Tension explores the artist’s interests in the paradoxical forces that characterize our human condition—freedom and bondage, movement and stasis, hope and despair—offering quiet ruminations on the human psyche.
Sorel Etrog was born in 1933 in Iasi, Romania. In 1950, he immigrated to Israel and studied at the Tel Aviv Institute of Art. In 1953, Etrog continued his art studies at the Brooklyn Museum Art Institute. In 1963, he permanently settled in Toronto. In 1966, he represented Canada at the Venice Biennale alongside artists Alex Colville and Yves Gaucher. His work is held in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City; the Tate Museum, London, England; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 1999 and 2000 Sorel Etrog donated 138 works on paper to the MacLaren Art Centre.