Come visit Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center (SBMLC) at the Omaha Summer Arts Festival right outside our front door. Visit our booth to learn more about upcoming events and participate in family-friendly art activities.
The Museum will also have extended hours during the festival to visit ourinaugural exhibition. See you in the Gallery!
We are pleased to announce the extension of our inaugural show, In the Beginning: The Artist Samuel Bak, now through July 16. The exhibition features over fifty works that explore Bak’s artistic career from his watercolors done in the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp in Landsberg, Germany, to his most recent paintings. He curated this selection of works to showcase his gift of over five hundred works to the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
On the second Wednesday of every month, join the Museum's Curator, Alexandra Cardon, in a discussion around an unseen painting by Samuel Bak that is part of our permanent collection.
12 P.M. to 1 P.M. in the Museum Classroom. BYO lunch and drinks.
These 30-minute presentations will address a theme in the current exhibition. During the talk by Museum Curator Alexandra Cardon, audience members will learn how Samuel Bak and his contemporaries wrestle with the representation of conflict, survival, trauma, as well as hope, reconstruction, and reconciliation.
Join us on May 25 for Renaissance Themes in Samuel Bak's Paintings.
Program is from 5:15 P.M. to 5:45 P.M in the Museum Classroom.
Maximum capacity is 30 and RSVP is required.
Arrive early to tour In the Beginning: The Artist Samuel Bakbefore the presentation.
This 10-minute talk will introduce visitors to key moments in Samuel Bak's life and career and situate them within their historical context. Maximum capacity is 10. No RSVP is required.
Saturdays at 1:00 P.M.
Sundays at 3:00 P.M.
Audio Tours
The Museum offers a 15-stop audio tour of the current exhibition in English.
Please bring your headphones and a smart device to scan the QR code at each stop.
Scheduled Tours
Join a regularly scheduled tourof the currentexhibition. Tours will be limited to 10 individuals at a time and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Treasure Hunt
Find the objects in Samuel Bak's paintings. We offer two text-based hunts to challenge young readers, as well as a picture version.
For more details, ask our Museum staff at the Reception Desk.
Student/Artist Drawing Hours
Come be inspired by Samuel Bak's artworks. Artists of all skill levels are invited to draw in front of Samuel Bak's paintings. You may bring your own supplies, however we kindly ask that you only use pencils in the Galleries. Fridays from 1 P.M. to 3 P.M.
Bak around Town
SBMLC Executive Director Hillary Nather-Detisch and Museum Curator Alexandra Cardon were honored to attend and participate in the Jewish Federation of Omaha and Institute for Holocaust Education’s Yom HaShoah Community Commemoration event on April 19, 2023. The work of art, How to (Samuel Bak, 2017, Oil on Canvas) was displayed for all guests in honor of the event.
How to discusses how does one keep memory alive. How does one transmit memory from one generation to the next? The three figures in the painting have some suggestions: one reads a document (first-hand accounts are essential to give original representations), another points off the canvas (original objects serve as a record), and one reaches to light a monumental candle hovering above the ground (acts of commemoration keep history present). What would happen if records and rituals were lost, and nobody or nothing remained to guide the present through the events of history?
SBMLC was honored to host theFriends of Art, Masters and Music event on April 23, 2023. The event featured The Temple Israel Players, Cellist James Stratos and Museum Curator Cardon for an evening of music and art, all benefiting the UNO Art and Art History departments.
Tri-Faith Initiative and the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Religious Studies department are hosting the second annual Race, Religion, and Social Justice Conference on June 7 and June 8 on the Tri-Faith Commons. This year’s conference centers around “Building Bridges of Hope,” and will feature 20+ breakout sessions following an opening evening keynote presentation by Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Critics Circle award-winning author of How the Word Is Passed; Counting Descent; and Above Ground.
The conference will address intersections between race, religion, and social justice across different sectors of society. Presenters include nonprofit and civic leaders, diversity, equity, access, and inclusion (DEAI) practitioners, community members, educators, physical and mental health practitioners, artists, religious communities, and scholars.
Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center is proud to be a sponsor of the conference.
Meeting Reservation Requests
Interested in reserving the SBMLC Classroom for your next meeting?