Carol Manley, chief curator of Holocaust Museum Houston, recommends starting from the rear of the rotunda-shaped Samuel Bak Art Gallery to experience 38 works by Bak that have been rotated into the space. Specifically, one should start at the artist's "Self-Portrait," painted in 1946 when he was only 13. Moving clockwise, the pieces transition from dark to light. The evolution reflects Bak's childhood, shattered as a survivor of the Holocaust, to an eventual return to his Lithuanian hometown in Vilna. Today, at 89, he lives in Boston. "You can watch him grow as he's painting," Manley says. "He becomes more...