Lasansky was best known for his series of prints known as 'The Nazi Drawings'- a series of 30 prints and one triptych that he created to examine the brutality of Nazi Germany. He has an unmistakeable style that (and keep in mind that I'm no art historian) I would describe as oddly surrealist and abstract.
I spent five years working as a student guard down at the Art Museum and I have to say that I had a sort of love-hate relationship with Lasansky's work. It was all so... dark- and if your masterpiece is a series of prints known as 'The Nazi Drawings' you probably shouldn't expect sunshine and daisies. So a lot of his work is dark- but it's powerful. Very powerful stuff and you have to respect his technique and his vision as an artist. Of 'The Nazi Drawings' Lasansky said this:
"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.”But what was really mind-blowing was his pioneering of intaglio printing. It revolutionized the medium and changed it forever- before people like Lasansky came along, print-making had been confined to a fairly small space. Lasansky made it big- he figured out how to do it and changed the dimensions of printing in a way that will impact the artform from now on. And he came to the University of Iowa to do it. For all that budget-minded legislators and people who find art to be boring can complain, the fact remains that Lasansky was a world-class print maker that help make the University's Art School one of the best in the entire country. His legacy should be celebrated and his contributions to the state (which won him the state's highest honor, the Iowa Award in 2007) deserve to be known and celebrated by every Iowan.
He will be missed.
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