Hanukkah Lamp, Heilbronn, Germany

Born in Sinsheim, Germany, to a secular family of silverware manufacturers, David Heinz Gumbel studied silversmithing in Berlin in the late 1920s. While working at the family factory in Heilbronn, he began producing handmade Jewish ritual objects of silver and other materials. While he never studied at the Bauhaus, the school’s avant-garde aesthetic greatly influenced his work, which is distinguished by its sleek elegance and unadorned surfaces. In 1934, Gumbel fled Nazi Germany and settled in Jerusalem, where he began teaching silversmithing, hammered work, and jewelry design at the Bezalel Academy.