CSP short about painting by Samuel Bak

Samuel Bak was born in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1933 at a crucial moment in modern history. From 1940 to 1944, Vilna was under Soviet and then German occupation. Bak’s artistic talent was first recognized during an exhibition of his work in the Ghetto of Vilna when he was nine years old. His father and four grandparents were killed by the Nazis. At the end of World War II, he fled with his mother and eventually arrived at the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp, where he enrolled in painting lessons at the Blocherer School in Munich. In 1948, they immigrated to the newly established state of Israel. He studied at the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem and completed his mandatory service in the Israeli army. In 1957, Bak left to continue his education at the École des Beaux Arts. He received a grant from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation to pursue his artistic studies. In 1959, he moved to Rome where his first exhibition of abstract paintings was met with considerable success. In 1961, he was invited to exhibit at the “Carnegie International” in Pittsburgh, followed by solo exhibitions at the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Museums in 1963. He joined Pucker Gallery in 1969. In 2017, The Samuel Bak Museum opened in Vilnius on the first two floors of the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum. In 2019, the Samuel Bak Gallery and Learning Center, In Loving Memory of Hope Silber Kaplan opened at the Holocaust Museum Houston to house more than 125 works donated by the artist. In February of 2023, phase one of Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center opened at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The artist donated 512 works of art to the learning center and the university has committed itself to constructing a freestanding museum. Bak has been the subject of numerous articles, scholarly works, and eighteen books, most notably a 400-page monograph entitled Between Worlds. In 2001 he published his touching memoir, Painted in Words, which has been translated into several languages. Currently in the works is a biography by Ute Ben Yosef that contextualizes the artist’s works within his personal experiences and the contemporary art world. He has also been the subject of two documentary films and was the recipient of the 2002 German Herkomer Cultural Prize. Samuel Bak has received honorary doctorate degrees from: the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH; Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA; Massachusetts College of Art in Boston; the University of Nebraska Omaha; and the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Видео CSP short about painting by Samuel Bak канала CSP - Community Scholar Program