The Bak Collection

Clemens Bak
Director, Gallery 4463

(This Album is still under construction)

I began this gallery in 2007 with a group of North Georgia Artists even though I don't consider myself an active artist. But I come to the arts with a substantial background and a mission. Both my father and mother were highly motivated professional artists who left a rich legacy that needs to be preserved. I grew up in household that was also a lively studio and my earliest memories is as my father's helper on many projects. I learned art because it was in the air that I breathed and everywhere I looked. After my father died, I undertook a personal odyssey to preserve his legacy and now that of my mother's as well. In the 1990's I helped organize a number of my father's exhibits both in the South and Mid-west. A traveling exhibit of 100 works, sponsored by the La Grange Museum of Art and funded by the Calloway Foundation went to eight museums and campus galleries.

In 1990 my mother met a kindred soul in a wandering artist, whose life-long interest in folk art and pottery led him to the dry country of Northern Nigeria. On one of his trips home, Charles Counts married my mother and both left to live in his adopted homeland.

All three of these artists left a profound impact on all who knew them and their work continues to captivate the imagination of the viewer and collector alike. My mother was still alive when Gallery 4463 opened and was hoping to be able to be actively involved in the gallery, but her health gave out. Her last major art event was a retrospective exhibit at Gallery 4463 in August of 2009, a celebration of her 65 years as an artist.

Gallery 4463 is the final home of several hunded works by both my parents as well as a number of works by Charles Counts. Original etchings, hand pulled lithographs and woodcut relief prints are available for sale though the Gallery. We welcome inquiries. In the meantime I hope you enjoy learning about the lives and accomplishments of my parents and the late Charles Counts.