Herbert Ferber working on And the bush
was not consumed... in his studio, 1951.
Photograph courtesy of Edith Ferber.When I made it I had to make it on the ground and I had to work at it by crawling through it and sitting on it and [that] was really the first time that I got an entirely different experience of form and of space because I myself was moving through these forms and not just looking at them and not just penetrating them with my eye. I was penetrating them with my body.
—Herbert Ferber (1906-1999)
The subject of Herbert Ferber’s exterior relief, And the bush was not consumed... was proposed by Congregation B’nai Israel’s rabbi, Max Grünewald. The rabbi, who had himself fled Nazi Germany, stated, “The Burning Bush burned but was never consumed, which reflects the fate of our people.”
Ferber created an abstract work that simultaneously evokes the traditional biblical motif of the branches of the Burning Bush, from which God first reveals himself to Moses, and the Tree of Life, symbolizing God as the source of all things. As with his contemporaries working in both two and three dimensions, Ferber’s concerns evolved from an interest in the unconscious into an abstract expressionism in which forms emanated from the mind and body without becoming representational. The imagery of his sculptures was conceived, as he stated, in a “knowing but nonrational way.”
The Millburn project occupied Ferber for over a year. He began with small pen-and-ink sketches before creating two copper models, each a foot tall, which he submitted to the architect and the rabbi for approval. The original commission was for a six-foot-tall piece, but Ferber thought this would be too small for the synagogue’s façade and volunteered to double its size. To create the final sculpture, Ferber bent cut-out sheets of copper into long hollow forms, which were then covered with lead to achieve a uniform color.
At the request of the Museum of Modern Art, the synagogue delayed its art dedication ceremony by several months so that Ferber’s new sculpture could be included in the museum’s Fifteen Americans exhibition of 1952. Once installed on the synagogue’s façade, the work’s stark, abstract appearance proved shocking to many, and was even reported to have distracted drivers on busy Millburn Avenue. Even the rabbi took a while to become accustomed to its aggressive spikes and rough texture, ultimately finding sustenance in its forceful forms. Ferber’s additional synagogue work included a sculpture commissioned by Goodman for the Fairmount Temple in Beechwood Village, Ohio.
Herbert Ferber (American, 1906-1999)
And the bush was not consumed, 1951
Lead-coated copper
148 x 88 x 27 in. (375.9 x 223.5 x 68.6 cm)
Congregation B’nai Israel, Millburn, New Jersey
Synagogue
Congregation B’nai Israel, Millburn, New Jersey
Percival Goodman, Architect
Online Collection: view works by:
Herbert Ferber
Adolph Gottlieb
Robert Motherwell