Sylvia de Swaan 1941-2023

Sylvia de Swaan was a Romanian born fine art and documentary photographer who lived and worked in Mexico, Europe and several parts of the United States. In the mid-1970s, she moved to a hamlet in Central New York with her second husband and son, where they bought a Greek revival crumbling mansion heated with wood and coal. When her marriage ended, she was invited to be the Director of Sculpture Space, a fledgling studio program located in Utica, NY, which during her tenure earned an international reputation, an NYS Governors' Art award, and a MacArthur Award for its uniqueness. Sylvia was also involved in the arts as an educator, curator, visual arts panelist and arts consultant.

In her personal work, Sylvia de Swaan engaged in long-term self-assigned projects that explore themes of transience, loss, individual and collective memory and identity, the state of the world and the neighborhood where she lives. Her longest running body of work, titled "Return" began in early 1990 with a series of train journeys. Sculpture Space was fortunate during Sylvia’s tenure to have an photographers eye on the early development of the Sculpture Space residency. Check out the Sculpture Space Negatives of the this programs first twenty years as seen by Sylvia. These contact sheets are part of a much bigger body of her life’s work which consists well over 150,000 photos.

Help Sculpture Space raise money for the Sylvia de Swaan fund which will help build an endowment to fund future generations of sculptors at Sculpture Space.