Four simple letters—H, O, P, E—belie the significance and complexity of the word they spell. For Bak, the work of building hope, or believing in the hope that others offer, requires engaging with the discarded and broken pieces of a previously trusted world now irrevocably shattered by the Holocaust. In landscapes, still lifes, and figural works, Bak gathers the layered elements of hope for us to contemplate and reminds us that they hold within and among them a promise for rebuilding and renewal. At best, hope is a wager of trust embodied in the venture of going forth.

In his essay When the Rainbow Breaks, Henry F. Knight guides us through the multivalent forms of hope in Bak’s work, asks us to question what we see and look beyond the visible, endeavors to define what hope after the Holocaust looks like, and teaches us that the process of creation after destruction represented by Bak’s work is itself the ultimate act of hope.

• Published by Pucker Art Publications, Boston, MA, 2022

• Distributed by Syracuse University Press

• 112 Pages with 136 color images

• ISBN: 978-1-879985-30-8

• Price: $50.00 + $10.00 shipping