Samuel Bak
Paintings of a world that questions itself
Samuel Bak, born in 1933 in Vilna, Poland, was a child prodigy who held his first art exhibition at age nine in the Vilna Ghetto during the Holocaust.
He and his mother survived, but his father and grandparents were murdered by the Nazis. After the war, Bak studied art in Munich, then in Jerusalem at the Bezalel Art School, and later in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He gained early recognition for abstract art in Rome before shifting in the 1960s to metaphysical figuration, which became his signature style.
Bak’s work reflects his Jewish heritage and personal history, using symbolic imagery to explore Holocaust trauma and human resilience. His art serves as both creative expression and a tool for education against intolerance.
Over eight decades, Bak has exhibited and lived around the globe before settling in Massachusetts in 1993. He became a U.S. citizen and received numerous awards and honorary doctorates.
His legacy is honored in institutions like the Samuel Bak Museum in Vilnius and the Holocaust Museum Houston. In 2023, the University of Nebraska Omaha opened the Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center.
Now 92, Bak continues to paint daily, ensuring art remains a witness to history.
A substantial body of information on Samuel Bak and his work is available across many academic, historical, and cultural resources. These sources collectively offer a rich, multidimensional portrait of Bak, covering his life story and the importance of his work within broader artistic and cultural traditions.
We invite you to explore the vast amount of information available on Bak and his work via the links below. You will be connected individually to organizations and institutions that have dedicated much of their mission to furthering the important message that Bak’s work exists to convey.
Samuel Bak has been represented by the Pucker Gallery since 1969. Visit the Gallery’s website to find the artist’s biography, works for sale, PDFs of exhibitions catalogues of his works, gallery publications, and links to online events and webinars. Questions regarding Bak’s work should be directed to the Gallery.
Samuel Bak at Yad Vashem (Jerusalem, Israel)
Established in 1953, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is entrusted with Holocaust commemoration, documentation, research and education: remembering the six million Jews murdered by the German Nazis and their collaborators; commemorating the destroyed Jewish communities, the ghetto and resistance fighters; and honoring the Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. Their permanent Bak exhibition demonstrates how an artist uses the language of art to address these ideas.
Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (Omaha, NE)
This museum solely dedicated to the preservation and display of Samuel Bak’s art organizes exhibitions, programs, and events centered around a generous donation of over 500 works of art by the artist. Through the work, it offers a source of collaboration and opportunities to students, faculty and staff with the broader community around the subjects of art, Holocaust education, human rights and genocide.
The Samuel Bak Museum in the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum (Vilnius, Lithuania)
In 2017, The Samuel Bak Museum opened in the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum with an inaugural gift by the artist of more than 150 works. Bak recently donated more than 180 additional works to create a full representation the artist’s career. Currently the only permanent display of Bak’s work in Europe, it traces his artistic journey from his earliest surviving drawings created in the Vilna Ghetto between 1942 and 1943 to large-scale 21st-century canvases that grapple with profound philosophical questions of humanity.
Samuel Bak Gallery and Learning Center, In Loving Memory of Hope Silber Kaplan, Holocaust Museum Houston (Houston, TX)
This permanent exhibition space opened in 2019 and houses over 125 pieces donated by the artist. The circular gallery includes three intimate exhibition spaces and an educational center designed to foster reflection and dialogue about genocide, justice, and resilience. All materials are presented bilingually in English and Spanish to ensure accessibility.
Florida Holocaust Museum (St. Petersburg, FL)
The Florida Holocaust Museum in Saint Petersburg, FL has amassed a substantial permanent collection of Bak’s work as a result of their longstanding commitment to the artist and the importance of Holocaust education in the state of Florida and beyond. Having presented several solo exhibitions of Bak’s work since 2001, the Florida Holocaust Museum utilizes Bak’s art as a tool in furthering their mission to teach the inherent worth and dignity of human life in order to prevent future genocides.
The Bak Project (Paris, France)
Using Bak’s symbolic and metaphorical art as a formidable educational tool against racism, intolerance and injustice, The Bak Project spearheaded by Daniela Bak is working to present the work in France, where nearly one in two young people have never heard of the Shoah. Here, Art becomes a witness and a guardian of what must never be forgotten.
COMPLETE WORKS (ONLINE)
The online catalogue raisonné houses a comprehensive account of artwork by Bak from 1946 to the present, a complete list of exhibitions with accompanying catalogues from 1943 to the present, a digital library of literature produced on Bak’s work from 1942 to the present, a list of public collections that hold his work, a collection of additional texts by various authors, and a guide to viewing Bak’s work.
