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May 9, 5 p.m. we invite you to of Samuel Buckthe works of one of the most prominent world-class Litvak artists the opening of the exhibition “City of Memories”. 27 lithographs and etchings by the author, which arrived in Alytus from the funds of the Vilnius Gaon Jewish History Museum, will be on display at the exhibition at the Center for Audiovisual Arts.
Many of us carry in our hearts the memory of our childhood city that takes us back in time. Sometimes cities devastated by geopolitical cataclysms remain only in the puzzle of memories, like those stars that stopped burning long ago, but their radiation still reaches us today. Such a parallel most aptly describes the source of inspiration for Samuel Bak’s work – the Jewish Vilnius of his childhood, which has ceased to exist, but remains the primary creative starting point.
Before settling in the United States, Samuel Bak lived, studied and created in Israel, Italy, France, Switzerland. It doesn’t matter what city he saw in front of his eyes, the urban landscapes of Rome, New York or Lausanne were lined up in the canvases according to the proportions of Vilnius. S. Bakas has said: “I will paint Vilnius in one way or another all my life.”
In the “City of Memories” exhibition, we will look through a keyhole at the Jerusalem of Lithuania (Vilnius), which still exists in the memory of S. Bakos. In some of the works, the winding streets of Vilnius seen by the artist in his childhood are lithographs. In other works, a requiem sounds for childhood homes, laying their facades in rows like sandstone tombstones. We will also look at still life compositions, in which – in another kaleidoscope puzzle, extracted from the depths of the artist’s memory – the world of the past is “sculpted” piece by piece from fragments of memories. In S. Bak’s works, glass bottles, cups or vases never fit into a complete puzzle, some element is always missing, pears and chessboard symbols are repeated.
Samuel Bak was born in 1933. August 12 In Vilnius. He loved to draw since childhood. Parents noticed their son’s artistic talent early. Little Samuel was especially encouraged to devote himself exclusively to art by his maternal uncle, poet, painter and musician Arno Nadel, who came from Berlin.
in 1941 S. Bakas and her parents were imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto, her father was transferred to a forced labor camp in the HKP. Grandparents and all other relatives were killed in Paneriai.
S. Bakas and his mother were the only ones from a large family to survive the Second World War, hiding twice in St. In the monastery located on Ignoto Street, Vilnius, which was later transformed into the Vilnius State Archive, priest Juozas Stakauskas, nun Marija Mikulska and teacher Vladas Žemaitis hid and saved 12 Jews from death. At that time, while reading Christian literature, S. Bak was convinced that he had a guardian angel – invisible, but protecting him from everything.
After the end of the war, Samuel left with his mother: first to Poland, then to Germany, and in 1948 reached Israel. Samuel Bakas returned to his hometown of Vilnius after more than 50 years. A retrospective exhibition “Return” was held here.
in 2017 Samuel Bakas officially became the 15th honorary citizen of Vilnius. In the same year, the Samueli Bak Museum was ceremonially opened in Vilnius – a branch of the State Jewish Museum of Vilnius Gaon. in 2018 On the occasion of the Day of the Restoration of the State of Lithuania, the artist Samueli Bakus, the nurturer of the memory of the Vilnius ghetto, was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order “For Services to Lithuania”. in 2019 The Samuel Buck Gallery and Learning Center has opened its doors at the Holocaust Museum in Houston.
The exhibition “City of Memories” will be open from 2024. May 9 until August 10
The project “Litvaki artists. Samuelis Bakas” partner – Vilnius Gaon Jewish History Museum
The project is financed by the Lithuanian Council of Culture
