Osvaldo Svanascini (1920-2015)

Osvaldo Svanascini studied in Europe, the United States and, most importantly— given that he specializes in eastern art—in the East, after receiving a scholarship from UNESCO to study in the Far East.

He was director of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes and of the Museo de Arte Oriental (1996-2000), and served as president of the Instituto Argentino Japonés de Cultura. He was awarded the National Book Award for his book Breve Historia del Arte Oriental (Brief History of Oriental Art).

Svanascini did an outstanding job as an art adviser for the Fundación Lorenzutti and, in 1969, began to develop the curatorial project "Survey of Twentieth Century Argentine Painting." Under his curatorship, the exhibition was divided in three sections that ranged from the 1920s to Pop Art and that included the participation of some of Argentina's most prominent national and international figures. He was in charge of the catalogs that featured writings about each artist by some of the most important art critics in Argentina.

To accompany the exhibitions, Svanascini organized lectures that became particularly relevant events. During his time at the Fundación Lorenzutti, he organized the exhibitions "Argentine Painting," "International Promotion," as well as comprehensive surveys like "Visual Experiences" and "Panorama of Young Painting in Argentina," during the early 1970s.

He wrote numerous books of poetry, short stories, essays and novels. For this work he received three recognitions from the Sociedad Argentina de Escritores (SADE) in the fields of poetry, short stories and essays.

He is the author of Breves Cuentos Fantásticos (Brief Fantastic Stories, 1962) and La Sola Poesía, Poemas Disociados (The Lone Poetry, Disassociated Poems, 1993). In his field of expertise, Svanascini published Esquema del Arte de la India (Overview of Art in India, 1959), Sesshu y la Pintura Zen (Sesshu and Zen Painting, 1965) Conceptos Sobre el Arte de Oriente (Concepts about Eastern Art, 1986), and Lo Sagrado y lo Endemoniado en el Arte del Tibet (The Sacred and the Demonic in Tibetan Art, 1996), among others.

Osvaldo Svanascini was a full-time professor at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes. He was awarded by the Fundación Konex, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ministry of Culture of Argentina. He was director and editor of the Casandra journal of contemporary culture.

He was decorated by the Japanese government with the Order of the Sacred Treasure of Japan.