Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna was born in 1940 to Polish and Russian parents in the town of Kamen-Kashirsky, Poland, near the Russian-Polish border.
His art reflects ancient themes and traditions of the Italian Renaissance often inspired by music, dance, mythology, and theater.
In 1983, he co-founded, together with Maria Luigia Guaita and others, the Florentine International School of Advanced Printmaking, Il Bisonte,[1] where he taught until 1992.
In 1975 he published Dancing the Labyrinth: Multi-Plate Color Etchings 1975–1985 with an introduction by Corrado Bologna (Belforte Editore, Livorno, Italy).
From 2007-08, he was Artist in Residence at Syracuse University (New York State), where he held an exhibit of multi-plate color etchings entitled "Icarus and Stravinsky" at the university museum gallery, as well as an exhibit entitled "Labyrinths" at the Point of Contact Gallery (Syracuse, New York) inside a complex structure of mirrors created around 25 drawings and etchings inspired by Borges' notion of the labyrinth.