Moses Ezekiel: Portrait of a Lost Artist adds to the conversation about a number of oppressive Confederate statues being taken down in recent years.
The documentary surprisingly runs just about 50 minutes in length. And yet, this is just enough time to tell us everything about Moses Ezekiel, what he represents, and why his Lost Cause sculptures should come down. Ezekiel came from a mixed Ashkenazi-Sephardic Jewish family that settled in Richmond, Virginia and owned slaves. Yes, the film makes note of the irony surrounding the conversation of liberation during Pesach seders. But anyway, Ezekiel fought for the Confederacy when he was a cadet attending the Virginia Military Institute. After the war, Robert E. Lee advised him to become a sculptor. Life later took him to Berlin and eventually Rome, which he called his home for years.
Art historian Samantha Baskind describes Moses Ezekiel as being “the Andy Warhol of his era.” His artwork outside the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. A statue of President Thomas Jefferson, commissioned by Isaac and Bernard Bernheim, sits in front of Louisville Metro Hall. A smaller replica is located in front of the Jefferson Rotunda on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. The very statue was the site of the Unite the Right rally. A Jefferson bust lives in the U.S. Senate chamber. Other sculptures are located at the University of Baltimore, Norfolk Botanical Gardens, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Cincinnati Art Museum…