Mauricio Lasansky was born October 12, 1914 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to parents of Lithuanian ancestry. His interest in printing was stirred at a young age, because his father made engravings for printing the currency of Argentina. Young Lasansky began his formal printmaking education at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, and within three years was the director of the Free Fine Arts School in Argentina. In 1943 he studied at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York under a Guggenheim Fellowship. The grant was renewed the following year, allowing him to study intaglio printing, a printing process for which he became famous. In 1945 Lasansky joined the faculty at the University of Iowa School of Fine Arts, where he founded the Iowa Print Group. Mauricio Lasansky retired as full professor in 1986.