Michal Hornstein

Michal Hornstein was a Polish-Jewish born Canadian businessman, art collector and philanthropist. Hornstein was born in Tarnów, Poland and raised in Kraków. During the Nazi regime he was forced onto a train and deported to Auschwitz. However, before the train reached the extermination camp, Hornstein jumped from its side. He spent the rest of the war hiding from the Nazis in the forests of Czechoslovakia and living in Budapest before decamping for Bratislava. In 1951, the couple immigrated to Canada and founded the company, Federal Construction Ltd., a real estate company, where he made his fortune and remained president of the company until his final days. The Hornsteins’ became prominent patrons of major Montreal institutions and were associated with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) to which he donated 420 works of art; the largest ever private donation to a Quebec museum. Some of their works included Dutch painters such as Willem van Aelst, Ferdinand Bol, Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Pieter Claesz, Adriaen Isenbrandt, Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan Steen, David Teniers the Younger, Willem van de Velde the Younger and Philips Wouwermans. For more information, please see: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/renata-and-michal-hornstein. Accessed 29 May 2021.