01 Work, The art of War, Samuel Bak's Elegy III, with Footnotes

Samuel Bak

Elegy III, c. 1997

Oil on canvas

47 1⁄4 × 50 1⁄4 inches

Private collection

Many survivors of the Holocaust report that they heard a final plea from those who were killed: “Remember! Do not let the world forget.” To this responsibility to those they left behind, survivors have added a plea of their own: “Never again.” Never for the Jewish people. Never for any people. They hope that remembrance of the Holocaust can prevent its recurrence. More on this painting

Samuel Bak was born in 1933 in Vilna, Poland, at a crucial moment in modern history. On the eve of World War II, Bak lived under Soviet and German occupation from 1940 – 1944. Bak’s artistic talent was first recognized during an exhibition of his work in the Ghetto of Vilna when he was nine years old. While he and his mother were sheltered in a local convent, his father and four grandparents all perished at the hands of the Nazis.

At the end of World War II, he fled with his mother to the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp, where he enrolled in painting lessons. Bak studied art in Munich and later at the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem after immigrating to the newly formed state of Israel with his mother in 1948. Bak completed his mandatory service in the Israeli Army. In 1956, he went to Paris to continue his education. 

Bak settled in Massachusetts and became an American citizen.

The aftermath of World War II features prominently in his work, as do visual metaphors representing Jewish genocide and the subsequent liberation of the Jewish people in the 20th century. More on Samuel Bak

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