Once named “the nation’s most influential printmaker” by Time magazine, the late University of Iowa professor Mauricio Lasansky (1914–2012) didn’t limit himself to just one art form. One of his most notable pencil works—The Nazi Drawings—recently found a new, permanent home in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
The Nazi Drawings show the atrocities of the Holocaust and World War II. The figures in the drawings—which include soldiers, religious leaders, women, and children—are life-size, with some reaching over 6-feet tall. Each tells a story of Lasansky’s disgust at the brutality of Nazi Germany.
Lasansky made the series of 33 works with pencil, turpentine wash, ink, and collaged elements like Bible and newspaper pages. The final work—a tripytch—was completed after the original series of 30, and it was composed of scrapped drafts of earlier pieces.
While Lasansky is known for his advanced techniques in intaglio printmaking, he felt the medium did not suit the message of The Nazi Drawings.
“He wanted The Nazi Drawings to be something that had no disconnect for people,” says Diego Lasansky (16BFA), Mauricio Lasansky’s grandson and an artist residing in Iowa City. “It was important that the techniques were easily understandable so they did not distract the viewer.”
Born in Argentina to immigrants from Lithuania, Mauricio Lasansky’s first introduction to printmaking came from his father. In 1943, Lasansky received his first of five Guggenheim awards to come to New York to study the European print collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A printmaking renaissance had begun as more artists were embracing the craft.
In 1945, Lasansky accepted a position to start the printmaking program at the UI, where he taught for 40 years, establishing one of the nation’s most renowned printmaking programs.
“What attracted him to Iowa ... was a chance to build a new program,” says Diego Lasansky, “and he wanted to raise his kids in the United States ... and he always talked about really liking the people in Iowa.”
From 1961 through 1971, Lasansky worked on The Nazi Drawings at his studio in Vinalhaven, Maine, on summer breaks from teaching at Iowa. The artwork—previously maintained by the Levitt Foundation in Des Moines—has now been donated to the National Gallery of Art for a larger audience to experience.