Market Yard in Vilnius

The longing for lost Vilnius. The Second World War and the Holocaust destroyed the rich Litvak world, and the fate of the Jerusalem of Lithuania echoed the fate of old Jerusalem: it turned into a ruin and a place of mourning. However, not all artists could accept the loss of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, a symbol of the traditions and the longevity of the Jewish community. Images of the city before the war remained in the hearts and minds of the Vilnius residents Rafael Chwoles and Samuel Bak, despite being filled with tragic overtones. Their work became a requiem for the lost city and its old way of life.

Rafael Chwoles survived the Holocaust through luck, but the tragedy claimed the lives of his parents and three of his five sisters. The artist left Soviet Lithuania, settled in Warsaw, and later moved to Paris; but he kept returning in his work to a city where the Great Synagogue was still standing and the Jewish quarter was bustling with activity.

After moving to the USA, Samuel Bak developed clear rules of composition and proportion based on images of his home town. He once said in an interview: ‘I have been drawing Vilnius in one way or another all my life. I saw Vilnius as a child, and I am still guided by those impressions in my work, by the proportions of the windows and the walls, among the houses and the streets’ (Samuel Bak, 2001, Lietuvos rytas, 224:8). The shadow of death that passed over Bak’s family in his childhood hovers over the ruins of his abandoned cities to this day (only he and his mother survived, his father and his four grandparents died).

Text author Vilma Gradinskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album STORIES OF LITVAK ART (2023). Compiler and author Vilma Gradinskaitė
Expositions: “Vilnius. Topophilia. Views of Vilnius from the collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Laima Laučkaitė)
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024

The longing for lost Vilnius. The Second World War and the Holocaust destroyed the rich Litvak world, and the fate of the Jerusalem of Lithuania echoed the fate of old Jerusalem: it turned into a ruin and a place of mourning. However, not all artists could accept the loss of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, a symbol of the traditions and the longevity of the Jewish community. Images of the city before the war remained in the hearts and minds of the Vilnius residents Rafael Chwoles and Samuel Bak, despite being filled with tragic overtones. Their work became a requiem for the lost city and its old way of life.

Rafael Chwoles survived the Holocaust through luck, but the tragedy claimed the lives of his parents and three of his five sisters. The artist left Soviet Lithuania, settled in Warsaw, and later moved to Paris; but he kept returning in his work to a city where the Great Synagogue was still standing and the Jewish quarter was bustling with activity.

After moving to the USA, Samuel Bak developed clear rules of composition and proportion based on images of his home town. He once said in an interview: ‘I have been drawing Vilnius in one way or another all my life. I saw Vilnius as a child, and I am still guided by those impressions in my work, by the proportions of the windows and the walls, among the houses and the streets’ (Samuel Bak, 2001, Lietuvos rytas, 224:8). The shadow of death that passed over Bak’s family in his childhood hovers over the ruins of his abandoned cities to this day (only he and his mother survived, his father and his four grandparents died).

Text author Vilma Gradinskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album STORIES OF LITVAK ART (2023). Compiler and author Vilma Gradinskaitė
Expositions: “Vilnius. Topophilia. Views of Vilnius from the collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Laima Laučkaitė)
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024