Exhibitions: Emil Ganso: Retrospective Exhibition of Prints

May 11, 1944: In considering the life of Emil Ganso, American artist, one critic remarked: his career was a symbol for the hope and excuse of democracy. This statement is reaffirmed in the First New York Retrospective Exhibition of Ganso’s prints which is current in the Print Galleries of the Brooklyn Museum from March 11 through May 21.

Of French, German and Spanish antecedents, Emil Ganso arrived in New York, a penniless immigrant. He found work in a bakery at a few dollars a week and began to learn the English language. Thereafter, he continued the long and discouraging struggle for subsistence, working all night and attending free art classes during the day at the National Academy School. A chance meeting and further friendship with Pascin led Ganso to greater efforts toward becoming an artist. A prodigious worker, every moment of his spare time was devoted to acquiring a technical knowledge, first of drawing then painting and finally etching, wood-engraving and lithography. His interest and enthusiasm never wavered, and it was largely through dogged perseverance and determination that Ganso came to be known as a master technician among artists. Finally, his talent and ability were recognized by the Whitney Studio, later known as the Whitney Museum, and Weyhe Gallery.

In the last ten years of his life, in addition to a large number of paintings, water colors and innumerable drawings, Ganso made more than fifty woodcuts, one hundred etchings and aquatints and over a hundred lithographs. More unusual still, he did all of his own printing in every medium in which he worked. In lithography alone, this is quite an achievement since such printing, including wash and color work, is in itself a highly complicated art.

Ganso, in the face of every conceivable obstacle, working not only in one medium, but many, turned his mind and his creative energy to a wealth of subjects, always experimenting. His compositions, in general consisted of still life, landscape and the female nude. Perhaps his best graphic work has been in aquatint and lithography. This, his first New York retrospective exhibition, affords ample evidence of Ganso’s place as “one of America’s finest print makers.” Over one hundred twenty-five prints including etchings and aquatints, lithographs, stencils, woodcuts and wood-engravings, together with a number of the original copper plates, woodblocks and stencil cuts, are exhibited. Also included are various states of etchings and examples of his color experiments in lithography. A surprising number of the prints have never before been exhibited. All the material in the exhibition is lent through the kindness of Mrs. Emil Ganso and The Weyhe Gallery.

DRYPOINTS
Central Park, 1931
Mountain Village, 1926
Road to Woodstock, 1932

ETCHINGS & AQUATINTS
After the Storm, 1935
Bather, 1936
Bearsville, 1931
Catskill Village in Snow, 1934
Chartres , 1929
East Kingston, 1935
Halberstadt I, 1929
Halberstadt III, 1930
Hudson River Village, 1932
Langenstein, 1930
Morning, 1939
Nude on Couch, 1937
Nude Sleeping, 1937
Nude with Mirror, 1931
Paris Park (Montparnasse), 1929
Park at Night, 1930
Quincy Segy, 1930
Quincy Segy Winter, 1929
Read by the Lake, 1927
Salzwedel, 1930
Silo in Winter, 1933
Still Life with Cranach Painting, 1930 [Handwritten note: (trial & finished)]
Studio, 1929
Studio Mirror, 1932
Sunset I, 1931
Sunset II, 1935
Thousand and One Nights, 1932

LITHOGRAPHS
Approaching Storm, 1937
Bather, 1925
Bearsville Meadow, 1932
Boat Landing, 1929
Cassis, 1929
Cooper’s Lake, 1931
Dark Roses, 1934
Dawn, 1933
Early Snow, 1937-38
Eddyville, 1935
Evening, 1937
Fisherman’s Cove, 1936
Girl Reading, 1932
Lingerie, 1932
Long Island Winter, 1936
McEvoy’s Dam, 1929
Mountain Lake, 1935
Nude, 1927
Nude Back, 1932
Odalisque, 1931
Reclining Nude, 1934
Resting, 1929
Spring, 1939
Still Life with Peaches, 1935
Summer Night, Central Park, 1929
Sunny Room, 1929

STENCILS
The Beach, 1930-31
Flowers and Fruit, 1937
Skaters, 1938
Spring, 1933
Summer, 1933
Winter, 1932

WOODCUTS & WOOD-ENGRAVINGS
At the Seashore, 1932
Bathers, 1928
Benedictine Bottle, 1929
Fisherman’s Landing, 1938
Flowers and Fruit, 1935
Four Bathers, 1926
The Harbour, 1930
The Lake, 1927
The Mandolin, 1925
Marsailles, 1929
Model on Couch, 1926
Nude at Washstand, 1926
Nude before Mirror, 1931
Nude Composition, 1928
Nude with Black Stockings, 1926
Reclining Nude, 1928
Rhine Town, 1925
River Village, 1927
Road Up-Hill, 1928
Seated Nude, 1929
Self Portrait with Model, 1930
Smoking Chimneys, 1925
Standing Nude, 1930
Studio Exterior, Woodstock, 1935
Still Life (small print), 1933
Still Life with Bottle, 1930
Still Life with Flowers, 1930
Still Life with Pitcher, 1930
Sunset, 1937
Three Bathers, 1932-33
Tree and Road, 1936
Two Bathers, 1933
Two Nudes, 1933
Village Church, 1925
Wooden Bridge, 1928
Woodstock, 1927
Woodstock, 1930
Two Nudes Reclining, 1931
Village Church (small print) 1932

Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1942 - 1946. 01-03/1944, 023-5. View Original 1 . View Original 2 . View Original 3