WebinART: Sanctified Symbol: Pears in the Art of Samuel Bak
Virtual event hosted by Pucker Gallery.
Join us Thursday, 13 April at 1PM for a conversation with Pucker Gallery artist Samuel Bak, Professor of English Emeritus at Simmons University and renowned scholar of the Holocaust and the art of Samuel Bak, Larry Langer, and Gallery Director Bernie Pucker. This exchange will focus on specific works from the new exhibition with the rea-PEAR-ance of Bak’s ubiquitous image. It should be a PEAR-fect ex-PEAR-ience.
The exhibition Sanctified Symbol: Pears in the Art of Samuel Bak will be on view at Pucker Gallery from 15 April through 4 June, 2023.
Samuel Bak was born on August 12, 1933 in Vilna, Poland at a crucial moment in modern history. From 1940 to 1944, Vilna was under Soviet, then German occupation. While both he and his mother survived, his father and four grandparents all perished at the hands of the Nazis. At the end of World War II, he and his mother fled to the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp. Here, he was enrolled in painting lessons at the Blocherer School, Munich. Bak’s studies continued as he immigrated to Israel, and he later received a grant to pursue his studies in Paris. In 1959, he moved to Rome where his first exhibition of abstract paintings was met with considerable success. In 1961, he was invited to exhibit at the "Carnegie International" in Pittsburgh. And, in 1963 two one-man exhibitions were held at the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Museums. It was subsequent to these exhibitions, during the years 1963-1964, that a major change in his art occurred. There was a distinct shift from abstract forms to a metaphysical figurative means of expression. Ultimately, this transformation crystallized into his present pictorial language. Since 1959, Samuel Bak has had solo exhibitions at private galleries in New York, Boston, London, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Zurich, Rome and other cities around the world. Numerous large retrospective exhibitions have been held in major museums, universities, and public institutions.
Lawrence L. Langer was born in New York City and educated at City College of New York and Harvard University. He is a Professor of English Emeritus at Simmons University in Boston. Among his books are The Holocaust and The Literary Imagination, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism in 1991, Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology, Preempting the Holocaust, and Using and Abusing the Holocaust. His most recent work is The Afterdeath of the Holocaust (2021). He has also collaborated with Samuel Bak on ten volumes of the artist’s work, for which he wrote critical introductions and commentaries.
Bernie Pucker is the director of Pucker Gallery, which he founded with his wife, Sue, on Newbury Street in Boston in 1967. Pucker Gallery represents over fifty artists from around the world working in a approximately ten exhibitions annually, often paired with artist talks, virtual “WebinArts,” and Gallery dinners.
Bernie is currently a Board Member at the Japan Society, Boston, and the Jewish Publication Society. He also serves on the Leadership Council for Facing History and Ourselves as well as the Artistic Advisory Board for the Terezin Music Foundation. Previously, he served as: President of Solomon Schechter Day School; President of the Newbury Street League; and Board Member for the Friends of Copley Square and The Unity Project, among others.
Bernie received his MA in Modern Jewish History from Brandeis University and his BA in History and English Literature from Columbia College.