Shelomo Selinger - Major Works

Major Works

Selinger's work on the Mémorial national des Déportés de France (French National Deportation Memorial) in Drancy, in rose coloured granite, took two years of carving by hand and was unveiled in 1976. The Mémorial de la Résistance in La Courneuve followed in 1987. In the meantime Selinger created the Requiem pour les Juifs d'Allemagne (Requiem for German Jewry) (1980) in Bosen, Sarreland and the Monument aux Justes parmi les Nations (Monument for the Unknown Righteous among the Nations) at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem (1987). Selinger started treating monumental statuary in open space in 1964 with his sculpture L’Esprit et la matière n° 1 (Spirit and matter n° 1), erected in Saint- Avold (Moselle), followed by L’Esprit et la matière n° 2 in Wissembourg (Bas-Rhin). The superb white marble Moise ou la Vitcoire de la lumière (Moses and the Victory of Light), set up in Arandjelovac (Serbia) has kept its head but the prophet's rays were destroyed by lightning.

Some of his other important open-air monuments are La tauromachie des arènes du Bouscat (Gironde) in 1974, La Danse, a group of 35 flower boxes created in 1982, stretching from the place Basse of the Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, to the La Défense (Hauts de Seine), covering an area of 3.600 square meters and the Groupe de 13 sculptures (1991) in the Tel-Hai Industrial park in the Galilee, a part of the 24 granite and basalt sculptures bought by the Open Air Museum of Tefen. These works are on display in Tel-Aviv, in Omer or in Lavon. Since 1998, Le prophète Elie (The Prophet Elijah) towers over the Mount Carmel dominating Haifa.

Selinger's sculptures comprise today more than 800 works in all possible materials and sizes, granite, red granite, sandstone, marble, bronze, oak, blackwood, cherry wood, ash tree or beech. Forty-eight monumental open-air statues are exhibited in public places. Five of these monuments are dedicated to the Shoa (holocaust) and the Résistance.

On the 103rd anniversary of the 1906 rehabilitation of Captain Dreyfus, the first deputy mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announced the creation of a new association. The association proposes to launch a national subscription campaign for the erection of a statue of Émile Zola on the Place Alfred Dreyfus in the fifteenth arrondissement in Paris. The sculptor will be Shelomo Selinger.

Selinger's graphic works in Indian ink and/or charcoal number thousands. Part of his drawings represents his concentration camp experience, but most of his works are real celebrations of life. Shelomo Selinger’s works were exhibited in about forty museums and galleries all over the world.