Painted in Words

Samuel Bak is a renowned artist whose works have been exhibited in museums worldwide. ­In Painted in Words Bak sets aside his brushes to narrate the stories of his life—as a child in Nazi-occupied Vilna, as a youth in European refugee camps, and as a maturing artist in Israel, France, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. Lovingly, he evokes his departed parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, along with their household em­ployees, to create a vital gallery of dramatic, lyrical, epic, and sometimes absurd heroes. With gentle humor, the child prodigy of the faraway past and the accomplished artist of today engage in a spirited dialogue from which emerges a self-portrait of the "Artist as a Young—and middle-aged and aging —Survivor."

In the foreword, novelist and social critic Amos Oz writes, "I regard Samuel Bak as one of the great painters of the twentieth century. There are few artists who have so successfully represented the mad cruelty of our era—its horrors, its desolation, its sadness and vacuity. And fewer still are the artists who have created their own unique personal language. In Bak's world, horror, humor, and dreams all solidify into one radioactive mass."

The brilliance, vision, and virtuosity that Bak brings to his painting are equally in evidence in his writing. This deeply touching work is a worthy addition to Holocaust literature and art history.