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Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna is a painter/printmaker of Russian origin, raised in Poland and Germany, educated in the United States, and resident of Florence, Italy, since 1964. Best known for his multi-plate color etchings, his artwork can be found in private collections and galleries around the world, as well as in the Uffizi Gallery's Permanent Collection of Prints and Drawings in Florence.

Since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1962, Kraczyna has held over 150 solo exhibitions across five continents. After completing his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1964, he moved to Florence, Italy, where he has lived ever since. In 1967, Kraczyna received the Golden Florin of Florence award, the highest honor bestowed upon a resident of the city, for his photographs of the 1966 flood of Florence. Around the same time, he began teaching and setting up printmaking departments in colleges and study abroad programs around Florence, beginning with the Rosary College Graduate School of Fine Arts (Villa Schifanoia) where he continued to teach until 1983. From 1973 to 1980, Kraczyna was printmaking technician to Marino Marini in Rome. During this time, he developed, refined and perfected his personal technique for multiple-plate color etching. Since the 1970s, Kraczyna has taught, lectured and given demonstrations on multi-plate color etching at universities and art schools in the United States, England, Italy, Mexico, Columbia, and former Czechoslovakia.

In 1982, Kraczyna co-founded the "Bisonte" International School of Advanced Printmaking in Florence where for ten years he was Artistic Director and taught techniques in color etching. In 1994, he set up a new course, Art on Paper (incorporating the three disciplines of drawing, painting and printmaking), at Sarah Lawrence College in Florence, where he taught and directed studio arts until the Florence center’s closure in 2016. In 1998, he joined the faculty at Syracuse University in Florence where he set up the SUF campus printmaking studio, was department coordinator from 2008-2012, and continues to teach today.  He has been Artist in Residence at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH (1988); Palacky University in Olomouc, CZ (1992); and Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY (2007-2008).

In addition to the courses he teaches in Florence during the academic year, Kraczyna runs a month-long intensive workshop on multi-plate color etching every summer in his studio in Barga (Lucca).

Publications

  • Labyrinth (pen and ink drawings on Aldo Moro's abduction and assassination), 1979.

  • Oneiric Carnival (multi-plate color etchings), 1982.

  • Segni Incisi (co-authored with R. Federicci and D. Viggiano for Il Bisonte), 1983.

  • Dancing the Labyrinth (multi-plate color etchings), 1986.

  • 40 Years of Flight with Icarus (mixed media), 2002.

  • Swietlan Kraczyna--Un Lavoro di 30 Anni (mixed media), Comune di Barga, 2003.

  • Arno '66: Fango e Ideali (photographs), 2006.

  • The Great Flood of Florence, 1966: A Photographic Essay, 2006.

  • The Marriage of Harlequin (mixed media), 2011.

  • Amy Luckenbach: Life and Love of Puppets and Dolls, 2012.