Bathers, woodblock (17 x 22,5 cm)

This print, executed following the (American invented) white line technique and intricate crotch hatching is one of his best known. It was printed for “The Colophon” magazine an antiquarian and bibliophile production. 

His wife Fanny, 10 years younger and who met him as a student, started Emil Ganso’s biography but never finished it. Although Halberstadt held one of the largest Jewish communities in Germany his ancestry is still unknown to me. 

His life started as the youngest in a poor Jewish family of 11 children in Halberstadt Germany. His father was of French Basque origin. Although his talent was recognised early he had to start a  career as a bakery apprentice but with little success. Said to have been a student of Jules Pascin (1885-1939)

In 1912 he signed on an ocean steamer as dishwasher and hopped of in New-York. Here he worked long shifts in bakeries but also started to work on his talent eventually becoming a celebrated American graphic artist and painter. He died unexpectedly aged 44.   

Below: Some examples of Renoir-like paintings of the female and reclining nude. Several of his painting were reworked as graphic prints: lithographic, etching and woodblock.