The Nazi Drawings

The following series of drawings was created over a five year period and completed in 1966 by Mauricio Lasansky.  Lasansky was born in Argentina in 1914 and became a resident of the United States in 1943.  He was a professor at the University of Iowa, in charge of the printmaking department and a Guggenheim Fellow.  As teacher and practitioner of the art of the print, his work was known and admired throughout the civilized world.

The Nazi Drawings were created as a reaction to the horrors imposed by the Nazi regime against humanity.  They were created in plain paper and ordinary pencil — the most humble, universal materials possible, he explained. Made over a six-year period and completed in the mid-1960s, it spans 33 images, tinted with washes of brown and rust.  The drawings are large, ranging from roughly 40 inches to over 70 inches in height.

Mauricio Lasansky passed away a year ago, in April, 2012 at age 97.  A great loss to the art world.

Of his Nazi Drawings, Lasansky says the following:

"Dignity is not a symbol bestowed on man, nor does the word itself possess force.  Man's dignity is a force and the only modus vivendi by which man and his history survive.  When mid-twentieth century Germany did not let man live and die with his right, man became an animal.  No matter how technologically advanced or sophisticated, when a man negates this divine right he not only becomes self-destructive, but castrates his history and poisons our future.  This is what The Nazi Drawings are about." 

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