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The Ghetto
Samuel Bak (American (born Lithuania), born in 1933)
1975–76
Medium/Technique
Oil on linen
Dimensions
162.9 × 122.2 cm (64 1/8 × 48 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Samuel and Josée Bak, in honor of Suzanne and Bernard Pucker in acknowledgment of the joys of friendship and a journey shared, and painted in memory of the artist’s four grandparents who in 1940 were killed in the woods of Ponary
Accession Number2021.255
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPaintings
This large work is one in a series of paintings and drawings Samuel Bak made in the mid 1970s as variations on the subject of the Ghetto. In this picture, narrow and windowless stone buildings are clustered in a desert landscape. In the center, a void opens up in the shape of the Star of David, exposing the crammed structures of the ghetto beneath. On the lower left, almost hidden in the orange rocks and pebbles, is the artist’s signature and date: BAK 1976
The artist himself called this “a portable memorial of the Shoah”— a fitting definition, also given the painting’s wandering for years through various exhibitions in German museums. The image’s expressive force was the reason for the choice by historian Ytzhak Arad to feature it on the cover of his Ghetto in Flames, a 1980 book on the history of Vilna Jews during the Holocaust.
The artist himself called this “a portable memorial of the Shoah”— a fitting definition, also given the painting’s wandering for years through various exhibitions in German museums. The image’s expressive force was the reason for the choice by historian Ytzhak Arad to feature it on the cover of his Ghetto in Flames, a 1980 book on the history of Vilna Jews during the Holocaust.
InscriptionsSigned and dated lower left: BAK 76
Provenance2021, gift of Samuel and Josée Bak, Weston, MA to the MFA. (Acquisition Date: April 14, 2021)
CopyrightReproduced with permission