This month’s Oculus feature is a sculpture by Irma Strimban, a member of the shul’s Judaism and Art group. The piece, 24 inches in height, was formed in clay, cast in plaster, and then bronzed. The artist titled the work “The Venus of Varick Street.”

It was completed under the tutelage of the highly revered Jewish sculptor Chaim Gross, who was teaching at the Educational Alliance Art School on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. “Chaim Gross was a wonderful teacher and a wonderful human being,” Irma said. “He cared about your work and also about you as a person. He would instruct with much good advice, with kindness and sensitivity, and always with encouragement.” Irma met Robert Strimban when both were students of Chaim Gross. They married in 1959.

“I will never forget Chaim Gross,” Irma said. “To this day, if I close my eyes, I can still see him standing at the front of the studio.”

Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections in the U.S., with substantial holdings at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.                                                                                                                                                          Photo by Saul Rosenstreich