Early Life and Journey
Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, on August 12, 1933, Samuel Bak was recognized from an early age as having artistic talent. During World War II, his family was forced to move into the Vilnius ghetto. At the age of nine, he held his first exhibition inside the ghetto. Following the war, he and his mother traveled through central Poland and the American-occupied zone of Germany, where he lived in displaced persons camps. He spent much of this period at the Landsberg am Lech DP camp in Germany, where he painted a self-portrait and the work A Mother and Son in 1947.
In 1948, Bak immigrated to Israel. He studied art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and later studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After various periods living in Rome, Paris, Switzerland, and Israel, he and his wife Josee moved to Boston in 1993, where he became a U.S. citizen.
Artistic Practice and Themes
Bak's work incorporates elements of surrealism, analytical cubism, and pop art, often utilizing quotations from the old masters. His paintings frequently employ allegory and metaphor, using substitution to convey meaning; for example, he uses toys to represent murdered children or books to represent people. His pieces often incorporate aspects of Jewish culture and the Holocaust, such as in his works Shema Yisrael, Alone, and Ghetto.
His thematic explorations include:
In his 2011 series featuring Adam and Eve, Bak depicts the first couple as lone survivors of a biblical narrative. His work continues to address the artistic expression of his memories of the Holocaust.
