Born April 19, 1895, Halberstadt, Germany
Died April 18, 1941, Iowa City, Iowa

Born into poverty in Halberstadt, he was apprenticed to a local baker at a young age but already at that time had the desire to draw. His baking was inconsistent, sometimes due to drawing on the job, and he was eventually hired and fired by every baker in Halberstadt. After being burned in a bakery accident, he learned from a fellow hospital patient about the United States. He hired on with the Lloyd Line as a ship’s dishwasher and on his sixth trip across the Atlantic he jumped ship in Hoboken (1912). With no money and no English capability what does he do? He gets a job in a bakery of course.

By 1914 he was registering at the National Academy School of Fine Arts. As he developed a body of work he has his first meeting with Erhard Weyhe of the Weyhe Gallery; Weyhe bought his entire portfolio and put Ganso on a weekly retainer so that he could devote his time to art. By 1925 he has his first show at Weyhe to good acclaim. Exhibitions continued annually at Weyhe through 1936. Carl Zigrosser, coordinator of the gallery, was a great mentor to Ganso.

Ganso spent summers at Woodstock where he rented a cottage and maintained a studio, eventually starting his own summer classes in the graphic arts. He was a good graphics technician, working in all aspects of intaglio, wood cuts, stencil prints and he even produced one monotype. He printed most of his own work and also printed for others such as some lithographs for Kuniyoshi, Arnold and Heckman. Woodstock was frequented by many other artists also such as Arnold Blanch, Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Jules Pascin. Poker games were not unheard of.

He traveled back to Europe in 1929, from which trip a number of works were created. In the depression year of 1935 he joined the Federal Arts Project in New York, staying until 1937, during which time he made 11 prints. In 1938 he was awarded the Pennell Memorial Medal by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

His first academic position was in 1940 at Lawrence College, Appleton, Wisconsin and in September 1940 he moved to Iowa City, Iowa for a one year appointment at the University of Iowa. He died suddenly there of a heart attack on April 18, 1941.

The reference work on Ganso’s prints is “Prints of Emil Ganso”, 1997, by Donald E. Smith.