In this installment of Explorations in Art, my selection of artists is a little eclectic, but that was done intentionally. I wanted to show the audacity of expression through different perspectives. The rippling effects of World War II through the eyes of artists who are both directly and indirectly associated with the atrocities of the War. You’ll see this eclectic mixture of Samuel Bak, John W. Mills, and Banksy all speak on behalf of a Post-Modern practice through painting, sculpting, and tagging respectively.

A Lifetime of Tragedy and Art

Samuel Bak was born in Wilno, Poland on August 12, 1933, and was recognized from an early age as having artistic talent—while he has described his family as having been secular, he also made it clear that they were proud of their Jewish identity and heritage. By the time Bak was six years old in 1939, World War II had begun and the town of Wilno had been transferred from Poland to Lithuania. On June 24, 1941, Wilno was formally occupied by the Germans and as Jews, Bak, and his family were forced to live in the Ghetto; at the young age of nine years old, Bak held his first exhibition inside the Ghetto, which can only be seen as a silver lining on a dark cloud. While living in the Ghetto, Bak and his mother sought refuge in a Benedictine convent where a Catholic nun named Maria Mikulska attempted to help them. They were soon deported to a forced labor camp, where they again sought shelter again in the convent where they remained hidden until the end of the war.

Samuel and his mother were the only members of his extended family that survived the war—sadly his father, Jonas, had been shot by the Germans in July 1944 a few days before Samuel’s liberation from the camps.

“When in 1944 the Soviets liberated us, we were among two hundred of Vilna’s (Wilno’s) survivors—from a community that had counted over seventy or eighty thousand.”

Samuel Bak on his liberation from forced labor camp

Due to their status as pre-war Polish citizens, they were allowed to leave Soviet-occupied Wilno and ended up traveling to central Poland, where they briefly lived in Łódź, but they soon left Poland altogether and traveled to the American-occupied zone of Germany. Bak and his mother then lived in Displaced Persons camps in Germany from 1945 to 1948, where he spent most of that time at the Landsberg am Lech DP camp in Germany. It was there that he painted a self-portrait shortly before he rejected his Bar Mitzvah ceremony. Bak studied painting in Munich during his period in American-occupied Germany, where he painted A Mother and Son (1947), which reflected some of his darkest memories of the Holocaust and their escape from Soviet-occupied Poland. By 1948, Bak and his mother immigrated to Israel and in 1952 Bak was studying art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.

Samuel’s art influences were fairly consistent throughout his lifetime and career, as a conceptual artist with several elements of post-modernism, he has the ability to utilize various different styles and visual vernaculars, such as surrealism, analytical cubism, pop art, as well as blatant influence from the old masters. Bak had the sensational ability to employ allegory and metaphor within his paintings because he never directly painted the scenes of mass death that he witnessed directly during his time in forced labor camps and other experiences during the Holocaust. Instead of painting such obvious visuals of evil and genocide, he would paint toys in place of the murdered children who had played with them, he would paint books instead of the murdered people who read them.

Bak briefly served in the Israel Defense Forces and then continued his studies in Paris in 1956 at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, before he spent periods of time in Rome, Paris, Switzerland, and Israel before he decided to permanently settle in the United States. In the late 1980s, Bak finally opened up about his paintings, where he admitted that his works conveyed a sense of a world that had been shattered. It wasn’t until 2001 when Bak returned to Wilno (now Vilnius) for the first time since immigrating and he has since returned several times.

Return to Vilnius: Soutine Street (2001)

I chose this particular oil on canvas by Samuel Bak because it reflects a piece of his childhood, in both a nostalgic yet traumatized way. We see the view of this street, that Bak actually visited in 2001—it’s uncertain where this painting was created, but it’s likely that he painted it while in Vilnius, Lithuania when he revisited his childhood home for this first time in decades.

When we look at this painting we see that even in his later years, Bak continues to pull influence from his tumultuous upbringing. While the street and buildings aren’t painted in ruin, we do see destruction in the form of angles and disjointed buildings. This is reminiscent of Picasso’s cubism and surrealism but combined to showcase Bak’s own Post Modern style.

One particular thing that I have noticed while studying what seems like an endless production of heart-wrenching paintings by this survivor, we see a teacup. In fact, some of the paintings here, notwithstanding, he created an entire series around the teacup.

In some of Bak’s other paintings, we see the motif of the cup taking center stage and in fact, appears in over forty pieces he has created—in some the cups are stacked precariously upon one another, suggesting anxiety or uncertainty of a situation, other pieces show the cups overturned, discarded, and crumbling. None of these cups, including the one shown in Soutine Street, are clean, indeed none of them are fully intact. It has been suggested that these cups represent, “tools of consumption, they help us imbibe. We use them to portion out manageable amounts and then employ them as aids in taking those quantities into ourselves,” (Burgoon). Wherever we see a cup in Bak’s work, we more often than not, see a landscape that is both dreamlike and desolate, they feel like memories that have descended down onto the canvas, into manageable experiences of what he must have gone through as a child.

The Visual Element of Color as Symbol

Red, Orange, & Brown

With the rusty red that makes up the roofs of Soutine Street, we see a message of anxiety, fear, and violence as if reflecting on the nature of what happened there during the war. The red also signifies rage, and the orange speaks of endurance. The browns that are intermingling with the reds and oranges give this painting a feeling of earthiness, humility, and hard work.

Grey

In contrast to the warm and fiery tones of the red and orange, Bak added in the greys that make up the building walls, the cobblestones, and the rubble surrounding the street. It gives the audience the benefit of a gentle calmness—but the kind of calmness that comes after a fire, or a destructive storm.

The Visual Element of Color as Mood

Anxiety

I know this is just a painting of a street, but for some reason, I feel anxious just looking at this painting; perhaps it’s the disjointed edges of the buildings, perhaps it’s the reddish hues that bathe the rooftops and towers.

Peace

The bluish greys in this painting show us what it feels like to contrast anxiety with peace; you have to give your focus completely to the stone buildings and rubble that are depicted. The color highlights the disjointed, broken nature of a city street post-war.

The Visual Element of Texture

I always love it when I can see the texture of the canvas through the brush strokes, but the cobblestones on the street look like they’re popping out of the painting. That was really striking to me as if it was bringing attention to the ground.

The Creation of Wartime III (1999-2008)

The Creation of Wartime III (1999-2008) shows a man lying atop a pile of destruction, in the same position as Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam (1512).

This is of course done intentionally to reflect the role of religion within the history of war, where this painting’s Adam is leaning next to missiles, in a building that has only been left half-standing. This Adam, however, is reaching towards an empty silhouette, which in my humble opinion signifies an absence of God.

This is perhaps even a commentary on how God forsakes people in wartime, or how it feels to be the target of a genocidal dictator—this Adam is incredible weary, his reach towards this void is languishing with this feeling of hopelessness.

Taking a closer look at the destruction that lays at our Adam’s feet, we see the shoes and the cups, both tattered—these two are a common motif within Bak’s body of work. The cup here is a symbol of consumption, or being consumed; the life of Adam has been consumed by the tragedies of war.

In 2011, Bak created a series featuring Adam and Eve—this series was comprised of 125 paintings, drawings, and mixed media works, where the artist casts the “first couple” as lone survivors of a biblical narrative of a God who birthed humanity and promised to never destroy it. Unable to make good on the greatest of all literary promises, God becomes another one of the relics that displaced persons carry around with them in the disorienting aftermath of world war.

Many viewers have described Bak as a tragedian, where he narrated the disintegration and disillusionment of the chosen people—he drew upon biblical heroes and conveyed them through a visual legacy that was first immortalized by Renaissance artists. His artistic expression, even to this day, evokes the destruction and dehumanization of the Jewish people which make up his childhood memories and continue to haunt him today. His art is his way of being able to speak upon the unspeakable atrocities that happened during the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazi party.

The most important thing an artist can tell is the truth about himself.

When viewing the artwork of Bak, seeing how crystalline the depiction of WWII is within his expression, it is easy to mourn the type of childhood he clearly had—themes of heartbreak, loss, and grief are evident and yet Bak himself is not self-pitying. His work reveals a certain optimism in the future and in no uncertain terms serves as a warning of our world’s history; this is a message of hope, that we should never give up in the face of injustice.

The Visual Element of Color as Form

Red

Bak’s Adam lays upon a red blanket, another deliberate use of a color that signifies a struggle, or battle—here we see his resignation because Adam isn’t curious in this painting as he is depicted in Creation of Adam, in fact, here he is laying down in surrender. The destruction has already been done, there is nothing that can be done now.

Brown

Here, the browns are what the rubble is made out of—an illustration perhaps, of the hard work, and earthy nature of the wood. A nod to the hardship of anyone who was not part of Hitler’s master race.

Grey

In the distance we see industrial stacks with large billowing plumes of grey smoke and we can also see that it is disspersing in the sky. A symbol to me of turmoil that has since past, but that it also lingers despite our attempts to move forward and heal humanity. Unfortunately, progress as is known in this modern era comes with a price—destruction has been its price so far and I believe this is where we have to say enough.

The Visual Element of Color as Mood

Sadness

The sadness to me here is evident, I feel as if the blues in this painting are telling us about the grief of loss during war.

Peace

This painting also instills in me a sense of peace and calm; the kind of peace that comes after great turmoil.

The Visual Element of Texture

This is another instance where we can see the texture of the canvas behind the paint, but the texture here is more than just canvas, it is the texture of the broken wooden frame and the crumbling bricks. These elements give this painting life, like the texture of the fabric upon Bak’s Adam, or the prevailing greens of nature beneath the rubble.

The Icon of Loss: The Haunting Child of Samuel Bak

Haunting indeed is this iconic photograph of a young Jewish boy standing aside his family in a Warsaw ghetto. I present to you Samuel Bak’s Icon of Loss series where he focused specifically on this young boy and everything he represented as an icon of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. I am not including this series for analysis, but rather for contemplation—an observation of innocence in a horrendous moment in history.

This is a well-known photograph taken during the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising—this boy holds his hands in the air as a submachine gun is pointed at him by SS-Rottenführer Josef Blösche. These unfortunate families had hidden when the ghetto was being emptied into forced labor camps but were later caught and forced out by Nazi troops. While it’s not known exactly where this was taken, nor who it was taken by, it is known that after it was taken, all of these Jewish families were taken to Umschlagplatz and then deported to Majdanek extermination camp—Treblinka.

As I was working on my last series of paintings based on the well-known photo of the Jewish boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, I could not help reflecting on the countless millions of children that perish in man’s senseless conflicts, wars, and genocides—past and present. I thought, “What an unspeakable abuse of our young innocents, our little just ones!”Samuel Bak

When I look upon the facial expression of this child, I don’t see fear as much as I see sorrow; he knows, at least to some extent, that his future is bleak and unavoidable, and I believe Bak saw that as well. This sacrificial lamb that he chose to represent the spirit of loss and trauma within his artwork proved to be an incredibly touching and emotional icon. As one of the most iconic photographs taken during the Holocaust, this boy came to represent children in the Holocaust, in addition to all Jewish victims. When I look at Bak’s work I am taken aback, by the level of detail that comes together in such a simple way and yet expresses such profound ideas. I would be proud to have any of Bak’s works on my wall.

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John W. Mills

John William Mills was born March 4, 1933 in London, England, and is considered a Post Modern English sculptor. He studied artwork at Hammersmith School of Art between 1947 and 1954, then he attended The Royal College of Art from 1956 through 1960. While most of his thirty public sculptures are in London, or elsewhere in England, there are a couple of his sculptures in the United States as well—as such he is considered an internationally acclaimed sculptor.

BLITZ: National Firefighters Memorial (1991)

This monument was originally drafted in concept by Cyril Demarne after being commissioned by the Firefighters Memorial Charitable Trust in 1990. John W. Mills sculpted this bronze statue installation of three firefighters as they are fighting a fire at the height of the Blitz in London during WWII. On May 4, 1991, The Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, unveiled this WWII memorial in Old Change Court.

This sculpture was created in London, as a tribute to the men and women who helped in the war effort at home—these British patriots fought the fires that threatened to destroy the whole of London as the bombs dropped during the London Blitz. When bombs struck the city on fifty-seven consecutive nights in a sustained campaign of bombing, these men and women were charged with keeping their city from burning down to the ground.

It was decided in 1998 to make the memorial a national monument to pay respect to a broader group. Now, BLITZ is more commonly referred to as the National Firefighters Memorial to pay homage to all of the Firefighters who have served as firefighters through the United Kingdom and were killed in the line of duty. As a result, the memorial was moved from its original site elevated and about four feet; the names of all fallen firefighters including those killed during peacetime were added to the base.

A re-dedication ceremony was held on September 16, 2003, where Princess Royal, Princess Anne, a patron to the Firefighters’ Memorial Charitable Trust was seen in attendance. The ceremony focused on the 1,192 names that had been added to the inscription in the bronze plates at the base of the memorial. An annual service is now held in remembrance of the fallen, on the anniversary of the start of the Blitz of London.

The Visual Element of Form as Model and Casting

Here we see the three firefighters cast in bronze, it is assumed, knowing the style of Mills, that he modeled this statue in a more malleable material—there is the indication that he works with plaster when first shaping his sculptures. The plaster modeling would have given him more freedom to express the overall message of the sculpture. This technique allowed Mills to create his full vision without concern of making mistakes before he reinforced the sculpture with the final element of bronze casting.

The Visual Element of Three-Dimensional Shape

The three-dimensional shape of BLITZ gives the audience a chance to view this piece of art from an exhaustive number of angles—the details can be more closely examined, touched, and otherwise thoroughly experienced.

The Visual Element of Texture

This statue is cast in a smooth bronze metal, but the detail of the statue is what creates the texture on the firefighters as well as the rocks and ground that constitute the base of the statue. With the nature of bronze, the statue has experienced oxidation which also causes the surface to roughen.

Monument to the Women of World War II (2005)

This is The Monument to the Women of World War II (2005) which was created by John W. Mills in London—it is situated on Whitehall in London. The original idea for the memorial came from retired Major David McNally Robertson in 1997, after being informed that the United Kingdom was one of the few countries that did not have a national monument dedicated to the work that women took over during World War II.

The initial design was one where a female Air Raid Warden was depicted sheltering children, but it was decided that the design was too complicated and so the idea was simplified into the final design that we see on display now. The bronze monument was created in London and its installation stands twenty-two feet tall, sixteen feet long, and six feet wide—there are seventeen individual sets of clothing and uniforms that surround the entire monument which symbolizes the hundreds of different jobs that women undertook during the war effort. Among the uniforms, we see the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the Women’s Land Army, a welder, a police officer, as well as a nurse.

Raising the Funds for the Monument

There were several campaigns to raise funds for the Monument to the Women of World War II, the first of which was led by women who had formerly been gunners. They ended up founding a fundraising trust with a journalist and documentary producer, as well as the Speaker of the House of Commons Baroness Boothroyd, Dame Vera Lynn, and Princess Royal, Princess Anne. Boothroyd became the patron of the fundraising trust, where Dame Vera Lynn and Princess Royal became vice-patrons along with several others.

The public raised over £300,000 an additional £934,115 was given toward the cost of the bronze sculpture by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and another £8,000 was raised by Baroness Boothroyd. An interesting side story, is about how Boothroyd won money when she appeared on the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2002. What was left to be funded was raised by the Memorial to the Women of World War II Fund, a charitable fund that was based out of York.

The Unveiling Ceremony

This monument was officially unveiled just two days after the 7/7 London Bombings—which was a series of coordinated Islamist suicides in London, which targeted commuters in the city’s public transport system during morning rush hour. Queen Elizabeth II herself unveiled it as part of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II—the memorial’s patron and vice-patrons, Baroness Boothroyd, Baroness Thatcher, Dame Vera Lynn, the Defence Secretary John Reid, and several female war veterans were in attendance.

This monument is dedicated to all the women who served our country and to the cause of freedom, in uniform and on the home front. I hope that future generations who pass this way will ask themselves: ‘what sort of women were they?’ and look at our history for the answer.

Baroness Boothroyd, patron of the Women of World War II trust and former Speaker of the House of Commons

The Visual Element of Form as Model and Casting

Like his sculpture BLITZ, Mills sculpted this monument out of a more forgiving material such as plaster or clay before he cast it in bronze. I think it’s incredibly interesting, the method that is used to create the final result of this work of art.

The Visual Element of Three-Dimensional Shape

What I find interesting about the shape of this sculpture is the message the shape itself sends—these are all uniforms without women in them and while it can be argued that they are empty to honor the women who fell in the line of duty, this monument is in dedication to all women who took charge during uncertain times and put in their effort where they could. To me, these uniforms are vacated just like the positions these women held were vacated after the men came back from the war. This speaks to me of two separate forms of sacrifice, the initial sacrifice they made going into these career fields where they may have previously had no experience and then sacrificing their careers once the men came back home to claim their jobs.

The Visual Element of Texture

The texture of this enormous monument is that of smooth bronze, where texture only forms through oxidation of the metal, or by the detail present on the uniforms themselves.

Not being a fan of sculptures I can still appreciate the work that Mills put in to create such beautiful depictions of life at its hardest. While I personally don’t connect on a deep level with Mills as I do with Bak or even Banksy, his work is still profound—I just wouldn’t necessarily want to own a sculpture by Mills.

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Banksy

Outspoken and (still) Anonymous

Banksy’s legacy is one of rebellion, anarchy, and of course what makes him most famous—his anonymity. He is the type to scoff at the ridiculous amounts of money people are willing to pay, not for the appreciation of art but, for the status which it gives the person who owns it. So while Banksy is known by name worldwide, for having installed his thought-provoking street art in nearly every corner of the world, he has maintained his anonymity through careful planning and an ironclad trust in his inner circle.

There are, of course, a few things that we know about Banksy, and these are things that have been confirmed—he is originally from the city of Bristol in the United Kingdom where he began his career tagging through the city during the 1990s. His journey from that point to what we know about him now is that his works have become much more sophisticated via the use of stencils, and his paintings now have a political message. We know that his first large-scale mural was entitled The Mild Mild West, which was painted in 1999 on a brick surface in Stokes Croft.

Banksy painted it in broad daylight over the course of three days and it is still in place today, along with several of his other works.

Season’s Greeting (2018)

This satirical Christmas piece was painted upon a garage in the Welsh industrial town of Port Talbot—his traditional graffiti style with spray paint, a found surface, and some pre-made stencils classify him as a graffiti artist, but he’s a graffiti artist with a message to deliver.

It is wrapped around two corners of a brick garage and at first, may appear to be a sweet boy enjoying the fresh snow of Christmas. With his cap on and his tongue out, we can see that he plans to go for a ride on his sleigh.

The full image, however, can only be seen once you turn the corner of the garage, where you can see that it’s not a lovely white Christmas, but instead a raging dumpster fire that is littering ash upon the child.

Banksy confirmed this work was his when he posted a vio that featured the street art on his Instagram account. The final touch to this particular piece is when the camera filming the artwork pans up and reveals the close proximity of an industrial smokestack.

The Visual Element of Color

Black & White

We see Banksy’s favorite method of isolating the most important aspects of his street art by putting most of the painting in black and white.

The black emphasizes a feeling of fear, grief, and mourning. The white represents innocence and youth. These colors come together in this image to represent a disjointed combination of the two.

Pink

There is only a small tongue *blep* or a showing of pink in this painting, but the presence of the color provides significant focus to that particular aspect of the painting.

Without knowing what is happening around the corner of this painting, it would seem that the pink is telling us to pay attention to the childhood experience of catching a snowflake on your tongue.

Orange

The orange in this painting is an incredibly important symbol here—it is the color of the inferno, which is fitting since it is emphasizing fire.

Orange is the color of change—but that doesn’t mean it is representing a good change in this usage.

The Visual Element of Texture

We see this painting has been laid upon a brick surface, something that is harsh and solid. There is no flexibility to concrete like there is in a canvas, but perhaps that is part of Banksy’s message. This world is harsh and inflexible, but this painting depicts the outcome of such a world, where the innocent experiences of youth are corrupted and polluted by the things we have introduced to the environment and further abused it with.

The Visual Element of Shape

Shape is an important aspect of Banksy’s work, the silhouettes in this painting are indicative and simple, they represent things that we can all identify with and it makes it even more powerful as a message.

Untitled (2019)

What is truly interesting about Untitled (2019) and indeed all of Banksy’s work, is that until Banksy takes credit for them we’re not entirely sure if they’re actually his. It might be labeled as a “suspected” Banksy, but truly it’s the nature of his anonymity that makes it unclear what art is really Banksy and what might just be a copycat.

So what do we really know about Untitled (2019)?

We know it appeared at the Marble Arch in London, which means that it was painted there since it’s street art—this location is where the Extinction Rebellion protests over climate change had been taking place at the time of its installment. While it’s not officially known whether or not this is an authentic Banksy, it fits his style of artwork and it sends a message, as his work is known to do. This particular painting depicts a small girl sitting crouched next to a sapling with the words, “From this moment, despair ends and tactics begin,” which (maybe) Banksy quoted from Raoul Venigem’s book The Revolution of Everyday Life (1967).

This particular protest brought in over 1,100 arrests and sixty-nine charges for people who were involved in the protest that occurred in central London on April 15, 2019.

The Visual Element of Color

Black & White

Black and white work together in this painting like much of Banksy’s other artwork to create shape and form in this painting, but they also signify innocence and fear, a common theme within his work.

Since most of Banksy’s art installations are some type of social commentary, his pieces generally involve innocent images of children with some type of evocative imagery in the surrounding scene. This particular painting is no different.

Green

Most of Banksy’s street art focuses on minimal color—his use of black and white as the main colors allow him to add in a pop of one additional color to add focus or emphasize a point.

This particular painting has a pop of green—which makes sense, it was in reference to nature, an obvious choice given the environment in which it came about. The little green plant adds emphasis to the protests over climate change by the Extinction Rebellion.

The Visual Element of Texture

This interesting piece of street art is on a cement slab, a hard but smooth surface that is in direct contrast to the softness of the subject matter. There is always the narrative of a concrete jungle, but this dives deeper than that. This little girl in her solemn state sits next to a freshly sprouted seedling, two soft and vulnerable lifeforms upon a concrete surface that has been known to scrape knees and initially keep nature at bay.

The Visual Element of Shape

Like we see in most Banksy art installations—or at least the street art pieces he has done with spray paint—he uses basic shapes and silhouettes to convey these figures. The silhouette of the trowel adds emphasis to hard work, in order to make a change for our climate and for our planet, we will have to do the work ourselves.

View more of Banksy’s artwork …

I find Banksy’s work pretty interesting, especially his spray-paint street art. I am generally more left-oriented when it comes to political ideology, so I feel as if I connect to his art in a way he meant for people to connect with it. Then again, that could be pure garbage since we don’t know for a fact who Banksy really is. While I would definitely want to own a print of some of Banksy’s artwork, in particular, his Season’s Greeting (2018), I have conflicted feelings about it because I know how Banksy has reacted to his artwork being owned in the past. Although there are conflicting narratives on who Banksy is and why he does what he does, one thing is certainly clear, Banksy is an entertainer in his own way.

Work Cited

Bak, Samuel, et al. The Art of the Question: Paintings by Samuel Bak. Pucker Art Publications, 2009.

Burgoon, Samantha. “Told & Foretold: The Cup in the Art of Samuel Bak, at Pucker Gallery.” Https://Www.fjordsreview.com, 29 May 2014, www.fjordsreview.com/reviews/art-samuel-bak.html.

Ellsworth-Jones, Will. “The Story Behind Banksy.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Feb. 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/.

Fewell, Danna Nolan., et al. Icon of Loss: the Haunting Child of Samuel Bak. Pucker Art Publications, 2009.

“John W. Mills – Sculpture.” John W Mills – Sculpture, johnwmills.com/index.html.

The National. “Is Banksy behind This New Artwork in London?” The National, The National, 26 Apr. 2019, www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/art/is-banksy-behind-this-new-artwork-in-london-1.854054.

“The Gallery.” Facing History and Ourselves, www.facinghistory.org/illuminations-art-samuel-bak/gallery.

“Samuel Bak – 17 Artworks – Painting.” Www.wikiart.org, www.wikiart.org/en/samuel-bak.