American Prints: Last Half 20th Century
Mauricio Lasansky Family and Company
March/April/May, 1997

The years between 1950 and the present represent a renaissance in
printmaking. During this period American innovators raised the art of
printmaking to a preeminent position alongside painting and sculpture.
So as much to honor as to enjoy the accomplishments of these
extraordinary artists, the Jane Haslem Gallery is pleased to announce the
fifth of eight annual exhibitions, American Prints: Last Half 20th
Century, to continue each spring through the year 2000.

Over the course of the last sixty-five years, Mauricio Lasansky has
produced more than two hundred prints--a remarkable feat made even
more remarkable by the profound influence his work has had on
printmaking. As a teacher, Mauricio Lasansky built one of the most
important print workshops in the United States at the University of Iowa.
And during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, students from this workshop went on
to dominate the teaching of printmaking even to this day. As an artist,
Lasansky developed innovative printmaking techniques that have forever
changed the way we think when we think about printmaking. His prints
came out of print drawers and competed with paintings for a position on
the wall. And as a humanist, Mauricio Lasansky recorded his observations
of the human condition, its concordance and strife, with an unblinking eye
for the most telling details.

This exhibition focuses on Lasansky as humanist as seen through his
portraits. Like Rembrandt, Velázquez, and Picasso, Lasansky has found
portraiture to be a principal source of inspiration. Portraits of
himself, his family, and, more recently, others he has admired have
dominated his imagery. The images are astonishingly sophisticated,
technical tour de forces, really, the type of which only a master
printmaker operating at the height of his powers could conceive, let
alone produce. And yet despite--or, perhaps, because of--Lasansky's
technical genius, the images are also deeply analytical, both critically
engaged and self-reflective.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lasansky was by the age of nineteen
already a serious artist and printmaker. His earliest influences were
mostly literary, including such writers as Dostoyevsky, Lorca, and
Cervantes. He saw paintings by Goya, El Greco, Modigliani, and Picasso
at the local museum, but since Argentina had no graphic tradition, his
knowledge of prints was limited to the 16th and 17th century biblical
woodcuts brought to his country by Catholic priests. Lasansky's father,
an engraver, taught him to make his first zincographs, linocuts, and
drypoints.

Working at first within the Latin romantic tradition, Lasansky produced
prints which portrayed people caught up in the tragic-comic events of
real life, including the Spanish Civil War. His style varied among
expressionism, surrealism, pastoralism, and poetic romanticism. Notable
among his earliest prints are his portraits of his wife, Emilia, who is
rendered in a surreal romantic style.

At twenty-nine, Lasansky, already recognized in both Argentina and the
United States, was awarded his first Guggenheim Fellowship to study the
print collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where he
looked at all 150,000 of the museum's prints. He also worked at Atelier
17 with William Stanley Hayter. His Guggenheim fellowship was renewed
and then, in 1945, he was invited to teach at the University of Iowa. But
Lasansky never forgot what he had learned in New York and took with him
to Iowa City his vast knowledge of prints and his love for innovative
printmaking techniques.

My Wife is a life-size head in profile. The head, formally positioned,
is soft and natural. The face is bathed in warm light, highlighted at
the eye, back of the head, and neck to accentuate the masterfully
engraved lines which form the hair. Dark overlays of ink in the
background contrast with the lighter tones in the face, adding dignity
and stature. This powerful image reflects both the essence of the
personality portrayed and the artist's feelings for her.

In 1959 Lasansky broke the mold and created the first ever oversize metal
plate print. His Self-Portrait measured a whopping 66 7/8" x 20 9/16".
Life-size figures on canvas were common, but life-size figures etched and
printed from a metal plate had been heretofore unattempted. This major
printmaking innovation was the result of Lasansky's concern that his
figures be as close to life as possible. Because he used printer's inks
as a painter used paints, the larger format seemed logical. Self-Portrait
was immediately followed by several life-size portraits: My Daughter
Maria Jimena, La Jimena, and My Wife and Thomas.

Lasansky has effectively answered such questions as, What do I look
like?, What am I like?, How do I feel?, and Who am I? when making a
self-portrait. In the 1959 Self-Portrait, he stands with his arms
folded in a full frontal view, his eyes looking straight out at the
viewer. The economy of the pose is intensified by the emptiness of the
background. Only the contrapposto stance indicates perspective within
this space. The artist's clothes are dark, plain, and closely fitted to
the body. Short sleeves reveal a strong right arm and hand--the hand
being the servant of the mind. The figure's startling directness and the
absence of distracting elements make it impossible for the eye to focus
on anything but the artist, whose pronounced form becomes literally
palpable. One looks, begins to turn, and then looks again.

Life-size portraits have continued to occupy Lasansky's attention
throughout his career. A recent print, The Artist and his Wife Emilia
Barragan, tells the story of their long lives together. However, this
double portrait is entirely different from the 1959 Self-Portrait. In
the former, Lasansky sits with his wife on his lap, his arms around her,
her hand around his shoulder. The position of their heads is formal,
accentuated by the ties each wears. Both figures have been executed by a
single outline, and their collective form determines the picture's
space. Their presence is made emphatic by a colorful, flat, geometric
background. Overall the inks are thin, a technique which lends a veiled
sensuality to the composition. Only the artist's head is three
dimensional. Picturing himself old and his wife young, Lasansky
establishes an additional point of reference between his bald head and
her large purple hat. The gestures and positions of both figures enliven
their pose and establish a humorous psychological atmosphere which is
underscored by the clothes the two wear. Lasansky is pictured wearing
tennis shoes with green shoestrings, while his wife is shown wearing the
suggestion of a feathery boa around her shoulders. Lasansky gives us the
day of their marriage, December 16th, the year they met, 1930, and her
age, 12, when they met. The viewer's response is to "know" the artist
and to speculate on the relationship he shares with his wife.

Interspersed among Lasansky's family portraits are portraits of figures
from theater and myth. Lasansky has also made portraits of many of the
world's Great Thinkers, featuring, among others, Goya, Einstein, Verdi,
da Vinci, Curie, Tolstoy, Darwin, Michaelangelo, Freud, Pasteur, and
Lincoln. Not a bad group! The Great Thinkers are conceptualized
symbolically, the particularities of their appearances resonating with
fact, myth, fancy, and history.

At eight-two, Lasansky continues to work outside the accepted
printmaking tradition by challenging rules and procedures. His newest
images are of his grandchildren: The Clown and Emiliano Zapata, Diego
Bolivar-Our Grandchildren. These portraits, like many others, reflect both
Lasansky's great emotional intensity and his enduring interests in life,
love, family, and all manner of human enrichment.