The Florida Holocaust Museum Debuts New Collection of Surrealistic Art by Holocaust Survivor Samuel Bak

Jan 06, 2022Press Releases
January 06, 2022 [St. Petersburg, FL] — The Florida Holocaust Museum will open its newest exhibit “Ever Present: Candles and Chance in the Art of Samuel Bak” on January 22 and will host a live, virtual artist conversation featuring Pucker Gallery Director Bernie Pucker, and artist Samuel Bak Thursday, February 10 at 6:30 PM.  The exhibition focuses on two recent series “Ner Ot” and the “Art of Chance” produced by Holocaust survivor and artist Samuel Bak. In this series, Bak uses the candle as a symbol to examine the memory of the Holocaust. Dice is used as an icon of chance in the other series featured in this exhibition. Bak repeats the form of dice throughout these works to question the idea of chance in relationship to the Holocaust and his survival as well as to the human condition.
In his artwork, Samuel Bak has explored and reworked a set of metaphors, visual grammar, and vocabulary that ultimately raises questions. His art depicts a world destroyed, and yet provisionally pieced back together, and preserves the memory of the twentieth-century ruination of Jewish life and culture by way of an artistic passion and precision that stubbornly announces the creativity of the human spirit. Since 1959, the artist has had numerous exhibitions in major museums, galleries, and universities throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States including retrospectives at Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, and the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town.
The live virtual discussion will be hosted on The FHM’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/TheFHM
More information can be found on The FHM’s website: www.thefhm.org/events/
Exhibition Location
The Florida Holocaust Museum
55 Fifth Street South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Phone: (727) 820-0100
About the Artist
Samuel Bak was born in Vilna, Poland 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. While he and his mother survived, his father and four grandparents all perished at the hands of the Nazis. At the end of World War II, he fled with his mother to 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 1956 he went to Paris 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.
Since 1959, the artist has had numerous exhibitions in major museums, galleries, and universities throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States including retrospectives at Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, and the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town. He has lived and worked in Tel Aviv, Paris, Rome, New York, and Lausanne. In 1993 he settled in Massachusetts and became an American citizen. 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. 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; Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania; Massachusetts College of Art in Boston; and the University of Nebraska Omaha.
In 2017, The Samuel Bak Museum opened in the city of the artist’s birth, on the first two floors of the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum. In addition to the more than 50 works already donated by the artist, the Museum will accept more than 100 works in the coming years, and ultimately build a collection that spans the artist’s career. The Museum honors Bak’s life and art and is a testament to his commitment to educating current and future generations.
About The Florida Holocaust Museum
One of the largest Holocaust Museums in the country, and one of three nationally accredited Holocaust Museums, The Florida Holocaust Museum honors the memory of millions of men, women, and children who suffered or died in the Holocaust. The FHM is dedicated to teaching members of all races and cultures the inherent worth and dignity of human life in order to prevent future genocides. For additional information, please visit www.TheFHM.org
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