1933 Born 12 August in Vilna, Poland.
1940-44 Under German occupation: ghetto, work-camp, refuge in a monastery.
1942 First exhibition of drawings in the ghetto Vilna.
1945-48 Displaced Persons camps in Germany; studied painting in Munich.
1948 Emigrated to Israel.
1952 Studied at the Bezalel Art School, Jerusalem.
1953-56 Army service.
1956-59 Lived in Paris. Studied at the "Ecole des Beaux-Arts."
1959-66 Lived in Rome; 1966-74 in Israel; 1974-77 in New York City;
1977-80 in Israel; 1980-84 in Paris;
1984-93 in Switzerland.
1993 Moved to Weston, Massachusetts.
SELECTED GALLERY EXHIBITIONS
Finegood Gallery, Milken Jewish Center, Los Angeles - 2004
Galleria Schneider - 1959, 1961, 1965, 1966.
Galleria Liguria - 1963.
Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv - 1966.
Modern Art Gallery, Jaffa - 1968.
Pucker Safrai-1969, 1972, 1975, 1979, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991.
Hadassah "K" Gallery, Tel Aviv - 1971, 1973, 1978.
Aberbach Fine Art, New York - 1974, 1975, 1978.
DeBel Gallery, Jerusalem - 1978, 1980.
Galerie Levy, Hamburg - 1980.
Kallenbach Fine Art, Munich - 1981, 1983, 1984, 1987.
Soufer Gallery, New York - 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1997, 1999.
Galerie Carpentier, Paris - 1988.
Galerie de la Cathedrale, Fribourg - 1991, 1992.
Galerie Picpus, Montreux - 1991, 1992.
Pucker Gallery, Boston - 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006
Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA - 1998
George Krevsky Fine Art, San Francisco, CA - 1998
Beaver Country Day School, Chestnut Hill - 2004
The St. Botolph Club, Boston - 2004
SELECTED MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS
Bezalel Museum, Jerusalem - 1963.
Bronfman Center, Montreal, Québec - 1970.
Rose Museum, Brandeis, Waltham, MA - 1976.
Heidelberg Museum - 1977.
Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn - 1978.
University of Haifa, Israel - 1978.
Kunstverein Braunschweig - 1980.
Stadtgalerie Bamberg, Villa Dessauer - 1988.
Koffler Gallery, Toronto Ontario - 1990.
"Dürer Museum, Nuremberg - 1991.
Jüdisches Museum, Stadt Frankfurt am Main-1993
Hebrew Union - Jewish Institute of Religion, NY - 1994.
Janice Charach Epstein Museum, , W. Bloomfield, MI- 1994.
Snite Museum, Notre Dame University - 2000.
Spertus Museum, Chicago, IL - 1995.
Mizel Museum of Judaica, Denver, CO - 1995.
Rosen Museum Gallery, Boca Raton, FL - 1996.
Holocaust Museum Houston & B'Nai B'Rith Klutznick
National Jewish Museum, Washington, D.C. - 1997.
Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter, Exeter, NH - 1997.
Panorama Museum, Bad Frankenhausen, Germany - 1998
"Witness and Legacy", Traveling Group Exhibition in North America - 1995 - present. (Group Show).
"Transformation and Transfiguration", Snite Art Museum, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN - 2000.
"Working Through the Past", Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, FL - 2000.
"Returning Home", The National Museum of Lithuania, Vilnius, Lithuania - 2001
Neues Stadt Museum, Landsberg am Lech, Germany - 2002
Clark University, Worcester, MA - 2002
Canton Museum of Art, Canton, OH - 2002
92nd Street Y, New York, NY - 2002
Jewish Cultural Center and Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN - 2003
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY - 2003
The City Hall Gallery, Orlando, FL - 2004
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX - 2004
Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN - 2004
University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH- 2006
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Aidekman Arts Center at Tufts University, Medford, MA
Bard College, Annandale- on- Hudson, NY Ben Uri Gallery, London, England
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brookline, MA
Boston Public Library, Boston, MA
Constitutional Court of South Africa, Braamfontein, South Africa
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
Dürer House, Nuremberg, Germany
Facing History and Ourselves, Boston, MA
Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, FL
Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg, Germany
German Parliament, Bonn, Germany
Hillel Foundation, Washington, DC
Hobart & William Smith College, Geneva, NY
Holocaust Museum Houston, Houston, TX
Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Imperial War Museum, London, United Kingdom
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Jewish Museum, New York, NY
Jüdisches Museum, Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Kunstmuseum, Bamberg, Germany
McMullen Museum, Boston, College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Municipality of Nuremberg, Germany
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
National Museum of Lithuania, Vilnius, Lithuania
Panorama Museum, Bad Frankenhausen, Germany
Philips-Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH
Rose Museum, Brandeis, Waltham, MA
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada
Simmons College, Boston, MA
Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame University, South Bend, IN
Springfield Museum of Fine Art, Springfield, MA
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
Tufts University, Medford, MA
Tweed Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN
University of Haifa, Israel
University of Scranton, Scranton, PA
Vaud State, Switzerland
Williams College of Art, Williamstown, MA
Yad Vashem Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
PUBLICATIONS
New Perceptions of Old Appearances in the Art of Samuel Bak, Lawrence Langer. Pucker Art Publications, Boston & Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 2005.
Painter of Questions, TV Film by Christa Singer, Toronto, Canada, 2003.
Between Worlds: The Paintings and Drawings of Samuel Bak from 1946-2001, Pucker Art - 2002
Painted in Words: A Memoir, Indiana University Press, Pucker Art - 2001.
In A Different Light: Genesis in the Art of Samuel Bak, Lawrence L. Langer, Pucker Art Publication, and University of Washington Press - 2001.
The Game Continues: Chess in the Art of Samuel Bak, Samuel Bak & Lawrence Langer. Pucker Art, Boston & Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1999.
Landscapes of Jewish Experience, Lawrence Langer. University Press of New England, 1997.
Ewiges Licht (Landsberg: A Memoir 1944-1948), Samuel Bak. Jewish Museum, Frankfurt, Germany 1996.
Chess as Metaphor In the Art of Samuel Bak, Jean Louis Cornuz. Boston & Montreux, 1991.
Samuel Bak, The Past Continues, Samuel Bak and Paul T. Nagano. David R. Godine, Boston, 1988.
Bak, Monuments to Our Dreams, Rolf Kallenbach. Limes Verlag, Weisbaden & Munich, 1977.
Bak, Paintings of the Last Decade, A. Kaufman and Paul T. Nagano. Aberbach, New York, 1974.
Please visit the Jewish Heritage Online Maganize for an in depth article on Samuel Bak.
