Samuel Bak

Samuel Bek was born in Vilna, Poland, 1933, to a middle-class family. In 1940 his family was moved to the Vilna ghetto, where Bak was exposed to art and began to draw. In 1942 he exhibited an exhibition of his drawings in the ghetto. When the ghetto was evacuated in 1943, Bak was transferred to a labor camp outside Vilna. In 1944 he fled to a Christian monastery, where he stayed until the end of the war. In 1945 he studied art with a professor from the Academy of Art in Vilna.
In 1948 he immigrated to Israel and settled with his mother in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. In 1952 he studied at the “New Bezalel”. Between 1953 and 1963, he served in the IDF as a graphic artist, and in the 1950s and 1960s he designed sets and costumes for plays in theaters such as “Ohel” and “Habima.” In 1993 he immigrated to the United States.
Bak’s work draws its inspiration from Surrealist art. His realist paintings contain a mix of still lifes, images of fruit and landscape, reflecting his experiences during the holocaust.