Painter Samuel Bak was born in Vilna a few years before the start of World War II. His talent was recognized when he was still a child, and his work was exhibited in the Vilna Ghetto when he was nine years old. He went into hiding with his parents during World War II, but only he and his mother survived. When he immigrated to Israel in 1948, he enrolled at the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts. Later he lived in Paris and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. Many of Bak’s paintings focus on commemoration and memory of the Holocaust, and he is particularly well known for his surrealistic still lifes. He lives in Massachusetts.
Samuel Bak’s paintings have been described as surrealist, but they also show the influence of Old Masters, such as Albrecht Dürer and Michelangelo. He himself has said, “I don't mind if people call my…
Had I fastened
The cradle on a rafter,
And rocked it—and rocked it.
My little son, my Yankl.
But the house has vanished
Into a fiery dome,
How then can I rock
My little son, my own?
Had I…
Dad III was created for Family Business, photographer Epstein’s multi-media project about his father, William Epstein, and the fall of his family’s furniture store and real-estate business in Holyoke…