Witness
Holocaust survivor and internationally-celebreated artist Samuel Bak to visit UNO
By Kevin Warneke
"For me, a day that I did not paint is like a day I did not exist."
So he paints.
Every day.
Typically starting by 7 a.m., but not always, and often working seven hours.
He begins some days without inspiration. So he prepares canvas. He cleans brushes. “Suddenly, I have an idea. I will do this. I will do that.”
Then, he paints. Sometimes making progress on several paintings in one sitting. Always having 50 to 100 unfinished works waiting for his attention. He explains that he’s not like some artists who can focus on one work, start to finish. He likens that approach to the writer who can finish a manuscript and immediately send it to the printer, rather than editing, rewriting and reworking. As he ages, he says, he finds himself needing more time to finish his work with pauses between.
But he keeps at it, every day. Occasionally, the internationally celebrated artist grants himself a reprieve. He will take one
Sept. (25 & 26) when he travels to Omaha for a symposium and lecture on art and human rights. His visit, facilitated by UNO’s Sam & Frances Friend Holocaust & Genocide Academy, will include receptions, time with students and “Witness: The Art of Samuel Bak,” an exhibition that will feature 70 of his paintings.
Without question, the holocaust survivor’s art will get people talking.
“He loves to reflect on the relationship of man and God,” says Assistant Professor Mark Celinscak, executive director of the academy. “Basically, in the Holocaust, where was God in all this? It’s a common refrain in his work.
“I think Samuel Bak’s presence will be felt at UNO for a long, long time.”
‘You Needed 10 Miracles’
Bak was born in 1933 in what was then Vilnius, Poland. His parents and grandparents saw his artistic talent when the boy was 3. They told him he was a genius, and he believed them.
Then, a world war got in the way. On June 22, 1941, the German army invaded Vilnius, which had become part of Lithuania, and captured the city three days later. The Germans established two ghettos to contain Vilnius’ Jewish citizens – Bak’s family among them.
Samuel and his mother instead took refuge in the city’s Benedictine convent and hid in its archives. A nun provided Samuel with paper and paint. Eventually, when the Nazis suspected Jews were being hidden in the convent, mother and son fled and returned to one of the ghettos. Two Yiddish poets invited 9-year-old Samuel to display his work in a cultural exhibition they organized, in the ghetto, that also featured plays, concerts and poetry readings. This was Samuel’s first public display of his work.
Bak understands he should not have survived the war. His father didn’t. Neither did his grandparents. The Nazis gunned down his best friend and left his body in the street.
“In order to survive a situation where 95% of the Jewish community was murdered and 5% survived, you needed 10 miracles,” Bak says. “If I had nine miracles, it was not enough. It was very simple, a combination of many things. On one hand, sheer luck. On the other hand, my parents, who were doing whatever in their power, never lost hope to save me. … Some good people, Christians, who decided to help the Jews even at the cost of their own lives. It was a combination of all these factors — and here I am.”
Construction, Destruction, Reconstruction
Bak’s story continues after the Holocaust. In 1948, he and his mother immigrated to the newly established state of Israel. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, served in the Israel Defense Forces and continued his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
When he talks about his work, he explains that construction, destruction and reconstruction are part of life. One replaces the other. “The ability to reconstruct is a theme of mine.”
This is how one writer described his work: “Bak is keenly aware of the role the Holocaust has played in his choices of subjects and themes. His imagery reveals survival and suffering, reconstruction and destruction, hope and despair. His paintings are full of bits and pieces of broken objects that have been put back together in sometimes disturbing fashion.”
Those works spring from deep introspection.
“I would say that some artists paint self-portraits by looking in the mirror,” Bak says. “I paint self-portraits by looking into my inner-self.”
He paints from his studio in Weston, Massachusetts – also home for the past 27 years for he and his wife, Josée. Bak’s journey to the United States came after stints living in Italy, Switzerland, France and Israel. A decades-long friendship and partnership with gallery owner Bernard Pucker is one reason he came to the United States, and stayed.
Pucker, whose gallery represents Bak’s work, says he and Bak first collaborated in 1968.
“We were aware of his genius,” Pucker says. “The idea of reality suffused his paintings. His personal story was at the core of his capacity to visually recount humankind's travails and challenges.”
Bak says he long ago lost count and track of his paintings. Two collectors-turned-friends are cataloging his works (Search “Samuel Bak Kunst Archiv”), which stand at 7,700, but eventually may reach 8,000. “It’s not as many as the 50,000 that Picasso painted,” Bak says.
Searching the online catalog helped him reconnect with works he’d long ago forgotten. “Paintings are never finished, yet I myself must finish with them,” he wrote in his memoir “Painted in Words.” “Sometimes when I revisit them, there are works I like and some others that ask for modification. On another visit my perceptions may well be different. Luckily, since once they are done the paintings no longer ‘belong’ to me, I never touch them.”
He corrects himself. He did buy back one painting – The Family – he had sold. The painting resides at the Pucker Gallery, which displays it on request. “It was an important painting to me in the way I have tried to speak about family.”