Eliyahu Sidi, a French born Jerusalem artist has been creating for the past 40 years paintings and sculptures illustrating Jewish texts. By including details of contemporary life and regional folklore of modern Israel, Sidi transports the illustrated Jewish scriptures to the 21st century.

Sidi expresses his vision with strong evocative color and flat unmodelled form. Many of his works are arranged in horizontal registers that are divided by glued Photostatted texts of Jewish scripture. Like his paintings, his playful sculptures of creatures from found objects and painted wood pieces are fused with Jewish emblems and texts.

Choosing the Judaica wing as the venue for Sidi’s show creates a dialogue between his colorful paintings and sculptures and the ceremonial objects of the permanent collection.

Sidi provides us with a visual midrash, steeped in humor, exposing elements in the text that might have gone unnoticed. Through his text, form, line and color he elicits in us questions and enriches our understanding as he paints his obviously beloved Torah text.

Gideon Ofrat curated a show Of Sidi’s works called Eliyahu’s Gleanings at Beit Avi Chai,Jerusalem in January 2009. The sculptures that were exhibited in that show are shown here in the Judaica wing. The catalogue of Eliyahu’s Gleanings is available at the Museum book store.