Born 1933
Samuel Bak has been painting for over seven decades. From a very young age he was thought to possess extraordinary artistic talent. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Bak’s hometown Vilna came under occupation. Bak and his family were forced to move into the Vilna Ghetto inside of which he held his first art exhibition at the age of 9 years old. Samuel and his mother both successfully escaped the ghetto, finding refuge in a nearby convent, where they remained in hiding until the end of the war.
In 1948 Samuel immigrated with his mother to Israel. Here he studied art at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and spent most of his time studying. Following this period he moved to Paris to continue his studies, then to Rome and Switzerland before finally moving to live permanently in Boston, Massachusetts USA.
Bak is renown for his surrealistic style that developed in the 1960’s. His particular style of surrealism is imbued with his obsession with time: Time as memory or as a destructive force. Recollections of the past are the basic theme in his work.
