Yad Vashem Menorah - The memorial menorah designed by artist Zahara Schatz, daughter of artist Boris Schatz, symbolizing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, Israel, 1960.
The menorah is made of brass with six branches at its head, attached to a wooden base engraved with: "ונתתי להם יד ושם אשר לא יכרת" (And I will give them an everlasting hand and name that shall not be cut off). Schatz chose to design the six branches in the shape of a crown raised aloft to symbolize both the remembrance of the tragedy of the Jewish people in the Holocaust, and the hope for the future continuation and renewal of the Jewish people. The menorah was also chosen as Yad Vashem's official symbol. The menorah before us was designed by Schatz in 1960 as a Yad Vashem memorial menorah. The sculpture won second prize in a Yad Vashem symbol design competition, an enlarged model was placed at Yad Vashem's campus center in 1985 and it is lit once a year on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was also adopted as Yad Vashem's official symbol.
Zahara Schatz (1916-1999) Israeli sculptor and recipient of the Israel Prize for Sculpture and Painting. Daughter of "Bezalel" Art Academy founder Boris Schatz. She studied at the Grande Chaumiere Academy in Paris after graduating from the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jerusalem in 1933. In 1937 she participated in designing the Israeli pavilion at the Paris World Expo. In 1938 she joined her brother Bezalel in California, living in the USA until 1951. Schatz held many solo exhibitions in Israel and abroad including at Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Jerusalem Artists House and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She also participated in many group exhibitions worldwide. She won many prizes including the Dizengoff Prize for Art, the Yad Vashem Prize, and the New York Museum of Modern Art Golden Prize at the Milan Triennale. She was awarded the Israel Prize for Sculpture and Painting in 1955.
Height: 57 cm. Exposed fabric base without metal cover, tear in fabric under base. Good condition.
