Exodus

Artist - Nathaniel Kaz
Born - 1917
Origin - America
Year Built - 1946

About the Artist:  Nathaniel Kaz studied at the Art Students League in the 1940s with George Bridgman (1864-1943) and William Zorach. Kaz found the direct carving style of the League sculptors appealing, and he began working in a roughly Cubist style similar to Zorach and Chaim Gross. Kaz then taught at the League during the 1946-47 session.

Exodus, 1946, most likely refers to the biblical book, in which the tribes of Israel are liberated from their bondage in Egypt. An older man holding an infant walks forward, freed from a life of servitude. The band of viscous material around the man's legs may be water, a reference to the crossing of the Red Sea. Exodus may have some connection to contemporary events as well; in 1945, the defeat of Nazi Germany effectively freed thousands of Jews from Adolph Hitler's genocidal policies. Kaz's work, dating only a year later, may be an allegory of freedom and survival, in which the events of the present are read through those of the past.