Current Programming
All exhibition programming is free and open to the public. RSVP required.
Exhibition Lecture Series
Torsten Homberger, PhD. | Kimberly Minor, PhD. | Claudia García, PhD. | Christine Beard, D.M.A
Bak to Basics: Chess for All Ages
September 14 | October 5 | November 9 | December 7
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.