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Phone number: +39-055-5031369
Fax: +39-055-571587
Email address: snkraczy@syr.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Biographical Profile
After spending a year in Rome and Florence on a European Honors Program scholarship in 1961, Swietlan (Nick) Kraczyna returned to Florence in 1964, where he has lived, worked, and set up printmaking departments for college and university programs ever since. In 1967, Kraczyna set up the Printmaking Department at the Rosary College Graduate Schoolof Fine Arts (Villa Schifanoia), where he continued to teach until 1983. In the early 1970s he began his work on a new technique for multiple-plate color etching. He has taught, lectured and given demonstrations on this technique at numerous universities and art schools in the United States, England, Italy, Mexico, Columbia (South America), and the Czech Republic since then.

In 1982, Kraczyna co-founded "Il Bisonte" International School of Advanced Printmaking in Florence, where for ten years he was the Artistic Director and taught techniques in color etching. Since 1994, he has directed the Studio Arts Department at Sarah Lawrence College in Florence, where he teaches a combined course on drawing, painting and printmaking. In 2003, Kraczyna set up the Advanced Printmaking Program for the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence. In 2007-2008, he was Artist in Residence at Syracuse University in New York. Since 1998, he has been teaching Printmaking and Intro to Drawing at Syracuse University in Florence, where he has also been coordinator of the art department since 2009.

Kraczyna has held 144 personal exhibits internationally. He is co-author of I Segni Incisi, the first comprehensive textbook in Italian on the history and techniques of etching, and has published numerous other books including Labyrinth (pen and ink drawings), Oneiric Carnival (multi-plate color etchings), Dancing the Labyrinth (multi-plate color etchings), 40 Years of Flight with Icarus (drawings, paintings, and printmaking), Swietlan Kraczyna--Un Lavoro di 30 Anni, Arno '66: Fango e Ideali, and The Great Flood of Florence, 1966: A Photographic Essay.

In addition to the courses he teaches during the academic year, Kraczyna runs a month-long workshop on multi-plate color etching at his studio in the Tuscan hill town of Barga (Lucca) most summers during the month of July.