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Posted by Naomi Firestone-Teeter
The touching, haunting paintings by Samuel Bak, inspired by the little boy from the famous Stroop Report photo taken in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943, are now available in a book published by Syracuse University Press. Along with the images, Danna Nolan Fewell and Gary A. Phillips consider the historical and visual implications of this iconic image and its contemporary evocations. The book, Icon of Loss: The Haunting Child of Samuel Bak
A survivor of the Vilna liquidation and a child prodigy whose first exhibition was held in the Vilna Ghetto at age nine, Bak weaves together personal history and Jewish history to articulate an iconography of his Holocaust experience. Bak’s art preserves memory of the twentieth-century ruination of Jewish life and culture by way of an artistic passion and precision that stubbornly announces the creativity of the human spirit.
To view images from the book, please visit Pucker Art Publications.
Originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Naomi Firestone-Teeter is the CEO of the Jewish Book Council. Prior to becoming executive director and then CEO, she served as founding editor of the JBC website and managing editor of Jewish Book World. Naomi sits on the board of Jewish Creativity International.Naomi was named to the New York Jewish Week’s 2019 “36 Under 36” and Algemeiner’s 2018 list of the 100 people positively influencing Jewish life and was included on the Global Jewish 100 list by Izzy in 2020. She graduated from Emory University with degrees in English and Art History and, in addition, studied at University College London. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.