Samuel Bak was born in Vilna, Poland in 1933. When Vilna came under German occupation in 1940, Bak’s family moved into the Vilna Ghetto and later into hiding before living in a labor camp. By the end of the war, Bak and his mother were the only survivors from his extended family.

As a child experiencing the Holocaust first hand, Bak often took refuge in painting and drawing. He possessed extraordinary artistic talent from an early age, a talent that his mother unconditionally supported and encouraged.

In 1948, Bak and his mother traveled to Israel. Eight years later, he moved to Paris and eventually Rome. He began his career as an abstract painter and received much acclaim in that genre. However, upon turning thirty, Bak began to realize that his work until then had only been preparatory for what was to come. He had a story to tell—a story about trauma that had been silenced for too many years, and one, he writes, “of a humanity that had survived two great wars, and whose world now lay in shambles.” Like many others after the devastation of war, Bak was searching for answers on how to repair and reconstruct his world.

Bak has since spent most of his life and career trying to reconcile and visually express the destruction and atrocities he witnessed as a child during the Holocaust. Bak refrains from over-explicit imagery; although set in an imaginary realm, his works are emotionally powerful. The Art Gallery organized a major exhibition of Bak’s work in 2006 and these two works, a gift and a purchase, are welcome additions to The Art Gallery’s collection.

Samuel Bak, In the Late Hours of the Day, 1989

Jewish symbols began to enter Samuel Bak’s work in 1974 while he was living in New York City. Bak writes, “Shadowed by my experience of the Holocaust, my lingering childhood memory of Vilna began to emerge and settle into the foreground of my painterly vision.” According to Bak, commonplace symbols like the Star of David may appear predictable and ordinary, but they also carry great weight.

Here the Star of David is the central focus of the picture. The smoke from a solitary house inside the rough and broken walls of the star curls into the air. The feeling of desperate isolation and imprisonment harkens to Bak’s experience in the Vilna Ghetto. The Ghetto, Baks says, “can be a place of self-determination and safety as well as one of involuntary confinement.” His awareness of this influenced many of his works.