Original illustrated wraps. 4to. 44 pages. 28 cm. First edition. Catalog of two exhibitions, Return to Vilna I and Return to Vilna II, held between 31 August and 20 November, 2002 at Pucker Gallery, Boston, Mass. With 67 full color illustrations. Samuel Bak “was born in Vilna. A few years later the area was incorporated into the independent republic of Lithuania. He was eight when the Germans occupied the city. Bak began painting while still a child and, prompted by the well-known Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever, held his first exhibition (in the Vilna ghetto) in 1942 at the age of nine. From the ghetto the family was sent to a labor camp on the outskirts of the city. Bak's father managed to save his son by dropping him in a sack out of a ground floor window of the warehouse where he was working; he was met by a maid and brought to the house where his mother was hiding. His father was shot by the Germans in July 1944, a few days before Soviet troops liberated the city. His four grandparents had earlier been executed at the killing site outside Vilna called Ponary. After the war, the young Bak continued painting at the Displaced Persons camp in Landsberg, Germany (1945–48) , where he also studied painting in Munich. In 1948, he and his mother immigrated to Israel, where he studied for a year at the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem. After fulfilling his military service, he spent three years (1956–59) at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He then moved to Rome (1959–66) , returned to Israel (1966–74) , and lived for a time in New York City (1974–77) . There followed further years in Israel and Paris, then a long stay in Switzerland (1984–93) . From 1993 Bak lived and worked outside Boston, in Weston, Massachusetts. ” (EJ 2007) Subjects: Bak, Samuel - Exhibitions. Holocaust Art - Vilna. OCLC lists 21 copies. Light wear to wraps, otherwise fresh and clean. Very good + condition. (HOLO2-108-44), Y 1/13