In 1951, architect Percival Goodman charged three avant-garde artists with commissions to decorate his Congregation B’nai Israel synagogue in Millburn, N.J. Robert Motherwell, Herbert Ferber and Adolph Gottlieb †each of whom went on to become a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement † created, respectively, a large-scale lobby mural, a monumental exterior sculptural relief and a velvet Torah curtain.
At the Jewish Museum to August 1, “Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber and Gottlieb” marks the first time these works have been exhibited in a museum setting since they were created more than 60 years ago. Motherwell’s mural presents abstracted Biblical references such as tablets of Moses (Ten Commandments), diaspora of the 12 tribes of Israel to the four corners of the world and Ark of the Covenant. The mural, one of the largest paintings of its time, is one of the few works in which the artist worked in a semirepresentational manner.
Ferber’s monumental exterior relief, titled “And the bush was not consumed&” expresses a religious theme in an abstract three-dimensional form, while Gottlieb’s iconographic design for the Torah curtain, now in the collection of the Jewish Museum, is a late example in the development of his influential pictograph paintings of 1941‵3.
In addition to these major works, the exhibition includes drawings and photographs, as well as an architectural model of the Goodman-designed synagogue.
The museum is at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street. For information, 212-423-3200 or www.thejewishmuseum.org .
