Page 37 - Studio International - August 1965

The Israel National Museum

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Interior view of the Shrine of
the Book showing the
Dead Sea Scrolls
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View from the Sculpture Garden,
Israel National Museum

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Sculpture by Jean Tinguely ·designed striking settings for the Martha Graham
in the garden
Dance Company, is theatrical in the best sense.
Instead of imposing discordant forms on a powerful
natural setting, he has moulded the landscape with the
sympathetic understanding a real artist brings to his
materials. The undulating, wave-like forms, created with
boulder walls and heaped earth, echo the shape of
ancient terraced agriculture and the historic moulds to
be found throughout the Middle East. With an intuitive
sense of history, an oriental respect for nature, and a
modern artist's daring, Noguchi has produced the most
beautiful and important contribution to the Museum.
The garden, in fact, is a finer piece of sculpture than
anything it contains. The Billy Rose Collection,
generous though the gift is, proves to be rather dis­
appointing. Mostly figurative work of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, the finest group are the delightful
Daumier bronzes. These, of course, are not shown out of
doors. The Rodin Adam is a powerful work, also more
suited to indoor display; Maillol, Epstein, a thick
limbed Lipshitz Mother and Child, inferior examples of
Archipenko and Zadkine, weak American academic
sculpture by Zorach and Richard Hunt, make up the
rest. Fortunately a few acquisitions or loans of import­
ance are also on view. notably two masterly Henry
Moores, perfectly placed, a powerful Wotruba, a monu­
mental iron structure by Cesar. A number of important
artists, such as Arp, Uhlmann, Richier prove unsuited
to the setting. The Israeli sculptors Dantziger, Shemi
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