Samuel Bak’s first art exhibit took place in the Vilna Ghetto in 1942, when he was just nine years old. The Shoah has been a persistent theme in the artist’s work, and a new book, Icon of Loss: The Haunting Child of Samuel Bak (Pucker Art Publications/Syracuse University Press), by Danna Nolan Fewell and Gary A. Phillips, presents a series of paintings by Bak all based on the iconic photo of the little boy with his hands up, surrendering to the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943. In an interview at the end of volume, Bak discusses his views about the photo he describes as “the most poignant image of Jewish Crucifixion.” — Mordecai Specktor