Football c. 1940

Louis Schanker made this woodcut, "Football," sometime in the mid-20th century. Its dynamic abstraction speaks to the broader history of American art grappling with modern life. Schanker came up through the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, during the Depression. The WPA was a New Deal agency that provided work for artists. Schanker got involved in the Federal Art Project, where he experimented with abstraction and printmaking techniques. This social and political context is crucial. The WPA aimed to democratize art, bringing it to a wider public and employing artists during a time of economic hardship. "Football" reflects this ethos through its bold, graphic style, accessible to a broad audience and its depiction of a popular American subject. The sharp angles and fractured forms suggest the speed and energy of the game. To understand Schanker's work fully, we need to delve into the archives of the WPA and explore the artistic and political debates of the era.