Swietlan Kraczyna

Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna is a painter and multi-plate etching artist, working primarily in Italy. Besides many private collections and galleries, his work is represented in the Uffizi Gallery Prints and Drawings Collection.

Early life

Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna was born in Kamen-Kashirsky on the Russian-Polish border in 1940. During the war his family fled from the Russian army front moving progressively westward until the war ended. From 1945 to 1951 they lived in Polish refugee camps inside Western Germany until emigrating to New Haven, CT. In 1962, Kraczyna earned his B.F.A. degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and in 1964 his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University. Upon completing his Master's degree, he moved to Florence, Italy, where he has lived ever since. He was married to master puppeteer Amy Luckenbach from 1964 until her death in the summer of 2009 in their home at Colleramole.

Kraczyna became a master of multi-plate color etching in the early 1970s. His art reflects ancient themes and traditions of the Italian Renaissance often inspired by music, dance, or theater. The landscape of Tuscany which surrounds him daily, both in his primary home in the hills of Colleramole (just south of Florence), and in his secondary home in the hills of Barga (just north of Lucca), is also a frequent inspiration for his work.

Teaching graphic arts

Kraczyna has taught etching and printmaking in the United States, England, Italy and the Czech Republic. In 1967, Kraczyna moved his artistic focus from painting to the graphic arts and set up the first etching department at Villa Schifanoia's Rosary College Graduate School of Fine Arts in Fiesole (Florence), where he taught for 16 years. In 1970 he was one of ten artists to represent the United States at the Palazzo Strozzi Biennale di Grafica. In 1983, he co-founded, together with Maria Luigia Guaita and others, the Florentine International School of Advanced Printmaking 'Il Bisonte',[1] where he taught until 1992. He currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, Florence, and Syracuse University in Florence during the academic year. Every summer, his workshop in multi-plate color etching in Barga, Italy, attracts students from all over the world: Japan, Korea, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Turkey, USA, England and Italy. Many of his students now teach in prestigious schools or have become well known as printmaking artists. Amongst them Sandro Bracchitta, Toni Pecoraro, Albert Puplampu, Andrea Serafini, Chesney Floyd, Maya Hardin, Gianfranco Pacini, Marco De Luca, Daphna Guttmann, Vincenzo Burlizzi, Erico Kito, Charley Goodby, Maureen Banker, Gary Lisa, Sun Jung Kim, Albert Beach, Zeynep Baransel, Patricia Alejandra Cordoba, Sandra Rigali, Katherin Godwin, Manuel Ortega, Silvia Papucci, Juan Esteban Sandoval, Makiko Ogata, Giovanni Greppi and Hubertine Heijermans, who is the eldest.

Marino Marini

From 1973 until 1980 Kraczyna worked as the technical assistant to the painter and sculptor Marino Marini on all of his color etchings. During this time, Kraczyna worked extensively on adjusting the many colors used in the large-scale color etchings of the maestro while perfecting the personal technique he had developed in the medium. Kraczyna has lectured on and demonstrated his multi-plate color etching technique in universities and art schools in the United States, England, Italy, Mexico, Columbia and the Czech Republic.

Books and exhibits

Kraczyna is co-author of I Segni Incisi,' the first Italian textbook on the history and comprehensive techniques of etching. In 1975 he published 'Dancing the Labyrinth: Multi-Plate Color Etchings 1975–1985' with an introduction by Corrado Bologna (Belforte Editore, Livorno, Italy). From 2007-2008, he was Artist in Residence at Syracuse University, New York, where he held an exhibit of multi-plate color etchings entitled "Icarus and Stravinsky" at the university museum gallery, as well as an exhibit entitled "Labyrinths" at the Point of Contact Gallery (Syracuse, NY) inside a complex structure of mirrors created around 25 drawings and etchings inspired by Borges' notion of the labyrinth. In 2003 Kraczyna held a large exhibit of his works entitled 'Icarus: 40 Years of Flight' at the Fondazione Ricci, in Barga, Lucca, where Kraczyna illustrated and engraved in memory his graphic work from 1962–2002.

Publications

In 2006, in honor of the forty-year anniversary of the catastrophic flood of 1966, 83 of Kraczyna's photographs were published in the volume "The Great Flood of Florence: A Photographic Essay," including 10 photos for which Kraczyna was awarded the Fiorino d'Oro, the highest honor of merit bestowed upon a resident of Florence. 2011: The Marriage of Harlequin with an exhibit in Barga, and in 2012 an exhibit at the Bisonte Gallery in Florence.

References

  1. ↑ Foundation Il Bisonte Florence Italy
  2. ↑ Kraczyna, Swietlan. Swietlan Kraczyna: thirty year retrospective : October 30-December 5, 1993. Madison, CT: Goldsmith Gallery, 1993.
  3. ↑ Kraczyna, Swietlan. Swietlan N. Kraczyna, Artist-in-Residence, Fall 1988: Multi-Plate Color Etchings : Jaffe-Friede and Strauss Galleries, Department of Visual Studies, Dartmouth College. Hanover, N.H.: The College, 1988.
  4. ↑ Federici, Renzo, Swietlan Kraczyna, and Domenico Viggiano. I Segni incisi: guida alla xilografia e alla incisione in nero e a colori. Firenze: Centro culturale per lo studio del'arte grafica, Il Bisonte, 1985.
  5. ↑ Kraczyna, Swietlan, and Nicola Micieli. The Rite of Spring and the Nine Variations on a Theme of Igor Stravinsky: Multi-Plate Color Etchings by Swietlan Kraczyna. Rome, Italy: Edicigno, 1985.
  6. ↑ Santini, Pier Carlo, Simone Bargellini, and Swietlan Kraczyna. Oneiric Carnival, Swietlan Kraczyna. Livorno: Belforte Editore Libraio, 1982.

External links