Skip to main content
University of Nebraska Omaha logo University of Nebraska Omaha
APPLY MY UNO DIRECTORY

Students Faculty Staff Community
University of Nebraska Omaha logo
Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center
APPLY MY UNO DIRECTORY
Students Faculty Staff Community
  • Plan Your Visit Backback to Main menu
    • Welcome
    • Accessibility
    • Admission and Hours
    • Find Us
    • Parking
    • Tours
  • About Us
  • Programs & Events Backback to Main menu
    • Event Calendar
    • Exhibition Programming
    • Newsletter
  • Meeting and Event Spaces
  • Collections and Exhibitions Backback to Main menu
    • Current Exhibition
    • Past Exhibitions
    • How We Got Here
    • Where We Are Going
  • Education and Outreach Backback to Main menu
    • K-12 Education Programming
    • Field Trips
    • UNO Partnerships and Collaborations
  • Support Backback to Main menu
    • Donate
    • 2024-25 Community Impact Report
    • Future Vision
  • Samuel Bak

Exhibition Programming

  1. UNO
  2. Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center
  3. Programs & Events
  4. Exhibition Programming

Current Programming

All exhibition programming is free and open to the public. RSVP required.

SBMLC exhibition lexcture series graphic. Top centered circle on a blue background, SBMLC logo. The bottom half of the graphic has three college students looking at a Samuel Bak painting.

Exhibition Lecture Series

Torsten Homberger, PhD. | Kimberly Minor, PhD. | Claudia García, PhD. | Christine Beard, D.M.A

A light green and dark green horizontal graphic with a photograph promoting "Family Programming" at the Samuel Bak Museum at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The photo captures three young children drawing on paper, seated in front of a blue wall with framed artwork of Samuel Bak's. The museum's logo and the event title are displayed above the photograph.

Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages

September 14 | October 5 | November 9 | December 7

A tan and brown horizontal graphic with a photograph promoting the "Emerging Artist Series" at the Samuel Bak Museum at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The photo captures three young women in the Museum, with one pointing towards an abstract, colorful Samuel Bak painting. The museum's logo and the event title are displayed above the photograph.

Baylee Bennet | Clarissa Weitzel


Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages – Sunday, September 14, 1PM

Participants will engage in a brief history of chess followed by a lesson on how to play chess. This program is designed for beginning players and seasoned chess players who enjoy helping others learn.

Samuel Bak explores chess as a metaphor and re-occurring story in his artwork. His paintings symbolize the unpredictability of life in times of conflict, while the chess pieces portray human struggle in an unjust and senseless world. Besides being a recreational hobby, chess can also help develop planning and decision-making skills, teach fair play, empathy, and improve critical thinking, spatial reasoning, and memory.

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.


Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages – Sunday, October 5, 1PM

Participants will engage in a brief history of chess followed by a lesson on how to play chess. This program is designed for beginning players and seasoned chess players who enjoy helping others learn.

Samuel Bak explores chess as a metaphor and re-occurring story in his artwork. His paintings symbolize the unpredictability of life in times of conflict, while the chess pieces portray human struggle in an unjust and senseless world. Besides being a recreational hobby, chess can also help develop planning and decision-making skills, teach fair play, empathy, and improve critical thinking, spatial reasoning, and memory.

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.


Exhibition Lecture Series - Thursday, October 9, 6PM

The Honor Dress of the Movement

Dr. Homberger, Associate Professor at UNK, will explore how the brown-shirted Stormtrooper uniform was central to Hitler's rise to power through an analysis of its design and marketing. The nazi uniform had a distinct political and military persona that was simultaneously violent and orderly, retrograde and modern—a dual image that proved popular with the German people and was key to the Nazis' political success.

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.

Speaker: Torsten Homberger, PhD.

A smiling man with gray hair and a beard, wearing glasses and a plaid shirt.


Emerging Artist Series – Saturday, October 11, 2PM

Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center presents the unique opportunity to join in the historical artistic tradition of a collaborative still life Emerging Artist workshop! Participants will tour our current exhibition, Suspended in Time: Still Lives and Magic Realism, practice observational skills, and make their own still life artworks! Materials will be provided, although participants are encouraged to bring their own materials to use or share with the group. Also, contributions to the collaborative still life display are welcomed by bringing an object that has personal meaning.

Objects historically used in the still life practice have been fruits, flowers, glassware, books, or even items that reveal something personal—antiques, stuffed animals, jewelry, or anything else from your own cabinet of curiosities!

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.

Artist: Baylee Bennett

Headshot of Baylee Bennett sitting in her studio, surrounded by her paintings

Artist Bio: Baylee Bennett is an oil painter living in Omaha, NE. Her work focuses on the intimate and sacred objects of her life as well as the interior spaces she resides. She is both a studio painter as well as a plein air painter. Baylee graduated from Creighton University with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in studio art and art history in 2023. Her work has been shown in Project Project, the Radial Arts Center, Benson First Friday, Bemis Center, Creighton University, and the Hot Shops Art Gallery all located in Omaha as well as the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art in St. Joseph, MO. Baylee is an artist in resident at Radial Arts Center, and she works at the Joslyn Art Museum as a Teaching Artist.


Emerging Artist Series – Saturday, October 25, 2PM

Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center presents the unique opportunity to join in the historical artistic tradition of a collaborative still life Emerging Artist workshop! Participants will tour our current exhibition, Suspended in Time: Still Lives and Magic Realism, practice observational skills, and make their own still life artworks! Materials will be provided, although participants are encouraged to bring their own materials to use or share with the group. Also, contributions to the collaborative still life display are welcomed by bringing an object that has personal meaning.

Objects historically used in the still life practice have been fruits, flowers, glassware, books, or even items that reveal something personal—antiques, stuffed animals, jewelry, or anything else from your own cabinet of curiosities!

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.

Artist: Clarissa Weitzel

A profile picture of Clarissa in a brown shirt smiling at the camera.

Artist Bio: Clarissa Weitzel graduated with her BFA in studio art and K-12 art education with a minor in art history from the University of Nebraska Omaha in 2025. She works with a variety of media including ceramics, painting, and sculpture. She also experiments with cosmetics as a painting medium to examine themes of body image, gaze, and feminism. Clarissa has been involved in multiple exhibitions associated with the University of Nebraska Omaha, most notably the 2024 and 2025 Student Juried Exhibitions and the 13th Floor Magazine, where she received first place for her work titled, Torso. She was also part of the Artists’ Cooperative Gallery’s 2024 Emerging Artists Exhibition (Omaha, NE), as well as Clover24’s Inaugural Group Exhibition (Omaha, NE).


Exhibition Lecture Series - Thursday, October 30, 6PM

The Historical and Cultural Impact of Still Life Painting

Dr. Minor will explore the historical and cultural impact of still life painting in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.

Speaker: Kimberly Minor, PhD.

A smiling woman with her hair in a braid, wearing hoop earrings and a teal-patterned blouse.


Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages – Sunday, November 9, 2PM

Participants will engage in a brief history of chess followed by a lesson on how to play chess. This program is designed for beginning players and seasoned chess players who enjoy helping others learn.

Samuel Bak explores chess as a metaphor and re-occurring story in his artwork. His paintings symbolize the unpredictability of life in times of conflict, while the chess pieces portray human struggle in an unjust and senseless world. Besides being a recreational hobby, chess can also help develop planning and decision-making skills, teach fair play, empathy, and improve critical thinking, spatial reasoning, and memory.

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.


Exhibtion Lecture Series - Thursday November 13, 6PM

Words for the Unspeakable: Mayan Genocide and Beyond

Dr. García will explore time structures, dialogical voices, and uses of genre in narratives by three Indigenous Guatemalan authors (1987-2007).

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.

Speaker: Claudia García, PhD.

A smiling woman with gray hair, dangling earrings and a white patterned blouse with a green fuzzy cardigan.


Exhibition Lecture Series - Saturday, December 6, 2PM

Bak & Music

Dr. Beard, distinguished faculty, and talented student performers from the UNO School of Music will deliver a captivating musical performance to complement the current exhibition at Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center. The program will feature compositions by banned composers, victims of war, and music that ties into the current exhibition.

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.

Speaker: Christine Beard, D.M.A

A woman with short, pink-highlighted hair holds a flute and smiles at the camera. She is wearing a purple blazer and a colorful patterned shirt. The background is a blurred image of a graffiti-covered alley.


Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages – Sunday, December 7, 1PM

Participants will engage in a brief history of chess followed by a lesson on how to play chess. This program is designed for beginning players and seasoned chess players who enjoy helping others learn.

Samuel Bak explores chess as a metaphor and re-occurring story in his artwork. His paintings symbolize the unpredictability of life in times of conflict, while the chess pieces portray human struggle in an unjust and senseless world. Besides being a recreational hobby, chess can also help develop planning and decision-making skills, teach fair play, empathy, and improve critical thinking, spatial reasoning, and memory.

This is a FREE event, but preregistration is required.


Contact Us

  • Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center
  • Phone: 402.554.6100
  • Email: unobakinfo@unomaha.edu

Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center

Contact Us
  • Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center
  • 2289 S 67 Street
  • Omaha, NE 68106   map
  • 402.554.6100
  • unobakinfo@unomaha.edu
Social media
a graphic for the Samuel Bak Center.

Next Steps

  • Visit UNO
  • Request Information
  • Apply for Admission
  • The UNO Advantage
  • Our City (Omaha)

Just For You

  • Future Students
  • Current Students
  • Work at UNO
  • Faculty and Staff
  • A-Z List

Popular Services and Resources

  • my.unomaha.edu
  • Academic Calendar
  • Campus Buildings & Maps
  • Library
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Course Catalogs
  • Internships & Career Development
  • The Maverick Store
  • MavCARD Services
  • Military-Connected Resource Center
  • Speech Center
  • Writing Center
  • Human Resources
  • Center for Faculty Excellence

Affiliates

  • University of Nebraska System
  • NU Foundation
  • Buffett Early Childhood Institute
  • Daugherty Water for Food Institute
  • National Strategic Research Institute
  • Peter Kiewit Institute
  • Rural Prosperity Nebraska
  1. University Policies
  2. Privacy Statement
  3. Accessibility
  1. 402.554.2800

University of Nebraska Omaha
University of Nebraska Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE, 68182
  • ©  
  • Emergency Information Alert
  • MavsReport

Social Media


Omaha Skyline

Our Campus. Otherwise Known as Omaha.

The University of Nebraska does not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and/or political affiliation in its education programs or activities, including admissions and employment. The University prohibits any form of retaliation taken against anyone for reporting discrimination, harassment, or retaliation for otherwise engaging in protected activity. Read the full statement.