Musical Composition

Louis Schanker, one of a handful of Americans to work in abstraction in the early 20th century, was a founding member in 1936 of the American Abstract Artists. By 1938, he was employed as a graphic artist under the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP). Schanker found inspiration in German expressionism and Japanese woodblock printing, creating his first known woodcut in 1935. He was one of a small group of artists who recognized the medium’s potential for vigorous contemporary expression. Fascinated with color, movement and rhythm, he regularly conceived his compositions, like the one shown here, as forms of musical expression.