The bold lines and abstract forms of Indian Dance are characteristic of Louis Schanker's color woodcuts. Born in New York City, Schanker began his career in the 1930s. By the 1940s, he had become an influential teacher in printmaking at the New School for Social Research. Schanker enjoyed experimenting in his work, printing colors on a black background to deepen them and working with relief techniques.
Prints by Schanker are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
[This is an excerpt from the interactive companion program to the videodisc American Art from the National Gallery of Art. Produced by the Department of Education Resources, this teaching resource is one of the Gallery's free-loan educational programs.]