Louis Schanker
Encyclopedia
Louis Schanker was an American abstract art
ist born in 1903. He grew up in an orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents were of Romanian descent. At an early age he had an interest in both art and music He took art courses at Cooper Union
, The Educational Alliance
and The Art Students League with Barnett Newman
, Mark Rothko
and Milton Avery
amongst others. During this time he shared a coldwater studio with the Soyer brothers, Chaim Gross
and Adolph Gottlieb
. In 1920 he traveled across the country. He lived the hobo life, joined the Sparks and then Barnum and Bailey circus
es, later working as a thresher in the wheat fields of the Great Plains
. There are elements in his works such as the circus murals done for the Neponsit Beach Children's Hospital and the print "Man Curring Wheat" that reflect these experiences. Around 1924 he returned to New York, leased another studio and resumed his friendships and artwork. Schanker spent 1931 and 1932 attending classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
, painting and traveling in Paris, Italy and Spain and returned as something of a Cubist
. He had his first show in 1933 at the Contemporary Arts Gallery and first exhibited at the Whitney Museum in 1936..
The Federal Government sponsored programs to assist people during the 1930s depression when there were no jobs available. Artists were included in the Works Progress Administration Project (WPAP
) and then the WPA
programs. Schanker participated in both beginning in 1933. He was an artist and supervisor in the mural and graphic arts departments. In the New York City Division he worked with many other artists including Jackson Pollock
, Lee Krasner
, Burgoyne Diller
, Byron Browne
, Milton Avery
, and Stuart Davis
. These were controversial times in the arts community. In 1935 he and others (Ilya Bolotowsky
, Ben-Zion
, Marcus Rothkowitz (aka, Mark Rothko), Adolph Gottlieb
, Joe Solomon
, Tschacbasov, Lou Harris
, and Ralph Rosenborg) formed a group called The Ten [Whitney Dissenters] that protested the lack of support for American Abstract Artists
by the Whitney Museum which concentrated on representational art. Schanker and Bolotowsky were also in the awkward position of having their works being shown in the museum's 1936 Annual exhibit at the same time that they were protesting. Another group, founded in 1936, of which he was a founding member, the American Abstract Artists
, (AAA) arose to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art.
Schanker was a radical among radicals. His "conglomerations of color-patches, among other things", wrote the sympathetic art critic
Emily Genauer in 1935, "are bound to alienate no small part of the gallery-going public." However, the work proved popular in the New York art scene.
By 1937, even the often hostile New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewell softened to the artist. When speaking of Schanker's major WPA mural at the municipal building studios of WNYC in New York, Jewell noted that Schanker had "a touch of lyric feeling". In 1938, Art News declared that "Louis Schanker's delightful Street Scene From My Window calls forth admiration for its delicacy of color and kaleidoscopic forms in plane geometry."
A decade later Schanker wrote:
Schanker moved into teaching, first at the New School for Social Research and then, from 1949 until his retirement, at Bard College
. The January 1955 Life Magazine article "Comeback of an Art", describes him as "one of the earliest U.S.woodcut artists to do abstractions, Schanker since has trained or influenced a generation of talented younger artists."
He was one of the major printmakers of the 1930s. He continued to be an active part of the New York art scene with many group and solo exhibitions including two shows (1943 and 1974,) at the Brooklyn Museum and a 1978 retrospective at the Associated American Artists
. Just a few blocks from the hospital where he died in 1981 the Martin Diamond Gallery was holding a major show of his oils, sculpture and prints and his work was on exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art
.
By all accounts a delightful man, Schanker was suspect to some because of his joie de vivre. Rothko once told co-founder of New York's Mercury Galleries, "He's a great painter and a great wood block artist, but I don’t know where he's going to go." "He thought he was frivolous" says Schectman. "Rothko was terribly, terribly serious."
Schanker's has remained popular and there is still continuing interest in his works. In 1989, summing up Schanker's career for a book on American abstraction, Virginia Mecklenburg
wrote of "an animated expressionism that aims at a fundamental emotional structure".
He married stage actress and singer Libby Holman
on December 27, 1960.
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
ist born in 1903. He grew up in an orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents were of Romanian descent. At an early age he had an interest in both art and music He took art courses at Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
, The Educational Alliance
The Educational Alliance
The Educational Alliance has been serving Downtown Manhattan since 1889.Founded as a partnership between the Aguilar Free Library, the Young Men's Hebrew Association , and the Hebrew Institute, the main purpose was to serve as a settlement house for Eastern European Jews immigrating to New York...
and The Art Students League with Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman
Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...
, Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
and Milton Avery
Milton Avery
Milton Avery was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City.-Biography:...
amongst others. During this time he shared a coldwater studio with the Soyer brothers, Chaim Gross
Chaim Gross
Chaim Gross was an Austrian born American sculptor. He was born in the then Austro-Hungarian village of Kolomyia and immigrated to the United States in 1921...
and Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
. In 1920 he traveled across the country. He lived the hobo life, joined the Sparks and then Barnum and Bailey circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
es, later working as a thresher in the wheat fields of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
. There are elements in his works such as the circus murals done for the Neponsit Beach Children's Hospital and the print "Man Curring Wheat" that reflect these experiences. Around 1924 he returned to New York, leased another studio and resumed his friendships and artwork. Schanker spent 1931 and 1932 attending classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière
Académie de la Grande Chaumière
The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France. The school was founded in 1902 by the Swiss Martha Stettler , who refused to teach the strict academic rules of painting of the École des Beaux-Arts. It opened the way to the "Art Indépendant"...
, painting and traveling in Paris, Italy and Spain and returned as something of a Cubist
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
. He had his first show in 1933 at the Contemporary Arts Gallery and first exhibited at the Whitney Museum in 1936..
The Federal Government sponsored programs to assist people during the 1930s depression when there were no jobs available. Artists were included in the Works Progress Administration Project (WPAP
WPAP
WPAP may refer to:* Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol* WPAP-FM, a radio station licensed to Panama City, Florida, United States...
) and then the WPA
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
programs. Schanker participated in both beginning in 1933. He was an artist and supervisor in the mural and graphic arts departments. In the New York City Division he worked with many other artists including Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Lee Krasner
Lee Krasner
Lee Krasner was an influential abstract expressionist painter in the second half of the 20th century. On October 25, 1945, she married artist Jackson Pollock, who was also influential in the Abstract Expressionism movement....
, Burgoyne Diller
Burgoyne Diller
Burgoyne A. Diller was an American abstract painter. Many of his best-known works are characterized by orthogonal geometric forms that reflect his strong interest in the De Stijl movement and the work of Piet Mondrian in particular...
, Byron Browne
Byron Browne
Byron Ellis Browne is a former Major League Baseball outfielder. Browne was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as an amateur free agent in 1963. In his first Major League at-bat, Browne lined out in the second inning of Sandy Koufax's 1965 perfect game. Browne had the dubious distinction of...
, Milton Avery
Milton Avery
Milton Avery was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City.-Biography:...
, and Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis or Davies may refer to:* Stuart Davis * Stuart Davis , or his album, Stuart Davis * Stuart Davis , Australian rugby league footballer* Stuart Davies, Welsh rugby union fotballer...
. These were controversial times in the arts community. In 1935 he and others (Ilya Bolotowsky
Ilya Bolotowsky
Ilya Bolotowsky was a leading early 20th-century painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric abstraction and was much influenced by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.Born to Jewish parents in St...
, Ben-Zion
Ben-Zion
Ben-Zion is a Hebrew given name. It may refer to the following people:* Ben-Zion Dinur, an Israeli politician* Ben-Zion Gold, an American rabbi* Ben-Zion Halfon, an Israeli politician* Ben-Zion Harel, an Israeli doctor and politician...
, Marcus Rothkowitz (aka, Mark Rothko), Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
, Joe Solomon
Joe Solomon
Joseph Stanislaus Solomon is a former West Indian cricketer who played 27 Tests for the West Indies. He played Test cricket from 1958 to 1965, scoring 1326 runs, mainly from number six and seven in the batting line-up...
, Tschacbasov, Lou Harris
Lou Harris
Lou Harris is a former all-star Canadian Football League running back.A graduate of USC, Harris played 4 seasons with the British Columbia Lions. His best year, his second, 1974 saw him rush for 1239 yards, 3rd best in the CFL...
, and Ralph Rosenborg) formed a group called The Ten [Whitney Dissenters] that protested the lack of support for American Abstract Artists
American Abstract Artists
American Abstract Artists was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major forum for the exchange and discussion of ideas, and for...
by the Whitney Museum which concentrated on representational art. Schanker and Bolotowsky were also in the awkward position of having their works being shown in the museum's 1936 Annual exhibit at the same time that they were protesting. Another group, founded in 1936, of which he was a founding member, the American Abstract Artists
American Abstract Artists
American Abstract Artists was formed in 1936 in New York City, to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. American Abstract Artists exhibitions, publications, and lectures helped to establish the organization as a major forum for the exchange and discussion of ideas, and for...
, (AAA) arose to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art.
Schanker was a radical among radicals. His "conglomerations of color-patches, among other things", wrote the sympathetic art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
Emily Genauer in 1935, "are bound to alienate no small part of the gallery-going public." However, the work proved popular in the New York art scene.
By 1937, even the often hostile New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewell softened to the artist. When speaking of Schanker's major WPA mural at the municipal building studios of WNYC in New York, Jewell noted that Schanker had "a touch of lyric feeling". In 1938, Art News declared that "Louis Schanker's delightful Street Scene From My Window calls forth admiration for its delicacy of color and kaleidoscopic forms in plane geometry."
A decade later Schanker wrote:
"Though much of my work is generally classified as abstract, all of my work develops from natural forms. I have great respect for the forms of nature and an inherent need to express myself in relation to those forms."
Schanker moved into teaching, first at the New School for Social Research and then, from 1949 until his retirement, at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
. The January 1955 Life Magazine article "Comeback of an Art", describes him as "one of the earliest U.S.woodcut artists to do abstractions, Schanker since has trained or influenced a generation of talented younger artists."
He was one of the major printmakers of the 1930s. He continued to be an active part of the New York art scene with many group and solo exhibitions including two shows (1943 and 1974,) at the Brooklyn Museum and a 1978 retrospective at the Associated American Artists
Associated American Artists
Associated American Artists is an art gallery and business established in 1934 in New York City. The gallery marketed art to the middle classes, first in the form of affordable prints and later in home furnishings and accessories, and played a significant role in the growth of art as an...
. Just a few blocks from the hospital where he died in 1981 the Martin Diamond Gallery was holding a major show of his oils, sculpture and prints and his work was on exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
.
By all accounts a delightful man, Schanker was suspect to some because of his joie de vivre. Rothko once told co-founder of New York's Mercury Galleries, "He's a great painter and a great wood block artist, but I don’t know where he's going to go." "He thought he was frivolous" says Schectman. "Rothko was terribly, terribly serious."
Schanker's has remained popular and there is still continuing interest in his works. In 1989, summing up Schanker's career for a book on American abstraction, Virginia Mecklenburg
Virginia Mecklenburg
Dr. Virginia M. Mecklenburg is the Senior Curator of painting and sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She has been a curator at the Smithsonian since 1979 and has organized more than twenty exhibits...
wrote of "an animated expressionism that aims at a fundamental emotional structure".
He married stage actress and singer Libby Holman
Libby Holman
Libby Holman was an American torch singer and stage actress who also achieved notoriety for her complex and unconventional personal life.-Early life:...
on December 27, 1960.
Public collections
- The Art Institute of ChicagoArt Institute of ChicagoThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, Chicago, Illinois - The Boston Public LibraryBoston Public LibraryThe Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States, the first large library open to the public in the United States, and the first public library to allow people to...
, Boston, Massachusetts - The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York
- Carnegie Museums of PittsburghCarnegie Museums of PittsburghCarnegie Museums of Pittsburgh are four museums that are operated by the Carnegie Institute headquartered in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
/Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States... - Cincinnati Art MuseumCincinnati Art MuseumThe Cincinnati Art Museum is one of the oldest art museums in the United States. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies. Its collection of over 60,000 works make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest.Museum founders debated locating...
, Cincinnati, OhioCincinnati, OhioCincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's... - The Cleveland Museum of ArtCleveland Museum of ArtThe Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
, Cleveland, OhioCleveland, OhioCleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border... - CU Art Museum, University of Colorado at BoulderUniversity of Colorado at BoulderThe University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
- The Detroit Institute of ArtsDetroit Institute of ArtsThe Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
, Detroit, MichiganDetroit, MichiganDetroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River... - The Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, New York, New York - University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MichiganAnn Arbor, MichiganAnn Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010... - Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York, New York - Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY, Purchase College, Purchase, New York
- The Newark MuseumNewark MuseumThe Newark Museum is the largest museum in New Jersey, USA. It holds fine collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the ancient world...
, Newark, New JerseyNewark, New JerseyNewark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S... - New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
, New York, New York - Philadelphia Museum of ArtPhiladelphia Museum of ArtThe Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
- Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, NebraskaLincoln, NebraskaThe City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....
Further reading
- Louis Schanker, "The Ides of Art: Eleven Graphic Artists Write", Tiger's Eye 8 (June 1949) p. 45.
- Acton, D., Adams, C., & Beall, K. F. (1990). A spectrum of innovation color in American printmaking, 1890-1960. New York: Norton.
- Diamond, M. (1995). Who were they? my personal contact with thirty-five American modernists your art history course never mentioned. New Rochelle, N.Y.: M. Diamond.
- McCoy, G. (1972). Louis Schanker (1903-). Archives of American Art. 123.
- Virginia M Mecklenburg; Patricia Frost; Phillip FrostPhillip Frost- Early Career :Dr. Frost earned a B.A. in French Literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1957. He received an M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1961 and attended the University of Paris from 1955 to 1956. He served as a Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Public Health Service...
; National Museum of American Art (U.S.), The Patricia and Phillip Frost collection, American abstraction, 1930-1945(Washington, D.C. : Published for the National Museum of American Art by the Smithsonian Institution Press, ©1989.) ISBN 0874747171 9780874747171 - Marika Herskovic, New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6. p. 16; p. 38; p. 330-333
- Schanker, L., & Johnson, U. E. (1974). Louis Schanker prints, 1924-1971. American graphic artists of the twentieth century, monograph no. 9. Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum.
- Steiner, R. J. (1999). The Art Students League of New York a history. Saugerties, New York: CSS Publications.
- United States. (1987). A New deal for American art in federal buildings, "Aerial act" Work Projects Administration, 1935-1943 golden anniversary. Washington, D.C.: U.S. General Services Administration.
External links
- Louis Schanker, 1903 -1981 Printmaker, Painter, Sculptor: 60 years of experimentation
- The Ten
- American Abstract Artists
- Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Archival, Manuscript and Photographic Collections, Louis Schanker
- Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Louis Schanker artwork in the collection