Hanukkiyot Featured at HUC-JIR Museums

In 1935, at only twenty, he opened the Platería del Recero in Mexico City. He worked within a mid-century Danish modern style and focused on producing flatware and hollowware. His career reached its peak in the 1950s, and he was well-respected for the quality of his workmanship. His son, Juventino Lopez Manrique, took over the Platería del Recero when his father transferred ownership to him. To this day, his work can be recognized by the maker’s mark of his initials, JLR.

This hanukkiah, made at the beginning of his career, is traditional and classic. A Star of David centers the design, and the sides slope upward to create a triangle shape. Nine little cups are ready to hold oil or a candle, eight for each night of Hanukkah and one in the middle for the shamash, or ‘helper’ candle that one uses to light each night’s candle.

Scherr invests the Hanukkah lamp ritual with Judaism’s core value that upholds the sanctity of human life and teaches that to save a life is to save an entire world. An artist known for pioneering methods with materials such as stainless steel and aluminum, Scherr was one of the first female automobile designers.

Klezmer musicians appear to dance across the base, the green violinist’s hat holds the shamash (helper candle), and the horn player with striped pants seems to levitate in the spirit of Chagall’s works.

The eight spaces for the candles seem to ride a blue glass wave, and instead of creating a place for the helper shamash candle in the middle, the sculptor Lipofsky places it high on the right. This menorah is actually two separate sculptures placed together. Of this piece, Liposfky said that he wanted to “direct the viewer’s attention to the positive and negative, the solid convexity of a curve and the emptiness of its absence.”

A renowned San Francisco Bay Area teacher and sculptor who worked with glass, Marvin Lipofsky was among the first to work with Harvey Littleton, who was the founder of the American Studio Art Movement at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Lipofsky built and directed the glass program at the University of California, Berkeley and developed the glass program at the California College of the Arts. He worked in studios all over the world creating beautiful glass works in over 30 countries. Although Lipofsky did not usually make Judaica pieces, this hanukkiah appeared in a Skirball Museum exhibition of contemporary Judaica in 2000-2001.