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Schanker's Photo Scrapbook

Trip to Europe (circa 1930,) to Study Art in Spain, France and Italy.  
He was a student at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris
 and studied mural painting in Italy.  Fellow passenger  Charles Logasa 
was also a modern artist.

During the 1940's Schanker's first studio outside of New York City was in the upstate artists colony near Sugarloaf Mountain

Schanker taught at the American Artists School, The Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research.  He retired after 15 years as a full Professor in the art department at Bard College

IRelaxing at "Dune House" (c 1970.)  In 1959 Lou married the blues singer, Libby Holman. They summered in their East Hampton home until his death in 1981.  One of Lou's bronze sculptures can be seen at the entrance contrasted against the Atlantic ocean in the background. Guests stayed in a 100 year old farm house on Madison Avenue in Sag Harbor.  Schanker had purchased it in the early fifties when he and other artists established a colony in the Hamptons..

During the years in the Hamptons, Lou and Libby participated in the life of both the art and theatrical communities.  Several parties and fundraisers were held at their home each summer. 

 Celebrities Backstage at John Drew Theater
 in East Hampton 

l. to r. Vincent Donohue, Anne Jackson, 
Libby Holman, Eli Wallach and Louis Schanker

Libby and Coretta King greeting guests 
to Dune House fundraising event

Coretta and Lou on the Beach 

Libby and Coretta join in the
 celebration of Lou's birthday. 

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and others from the Zen center of San Franciso 
relax on the deck overlooking the Atlantic at Dune House in East Hampton 
sometime in the late 1960's.  Libby and Lou had developed  an interest 
in Zen meditation,  traveling to Japan in the early 1960's. 

Cover of Hamptons Bohemia, 2002, by Helen A. Harrison and 
Constance Ayers Denne picturing Lou Schanker and other 
Hamptons artists on the beach in East Hampton.  The 1962 photo 
by Hans Namuth includes l. to r. standing: Al Held, Buffie Johnson,
 Lester Johnson, Howard Kanovitz, Michael Goldberg, Syd Solomon.
 Seated: Lee Krasner, Balcomb Greene, Sylvia Stone, John Little, 
Elenor Hempstead, David Porter, Rae Ferren, James Brooks, 
Arline Wingate, Tania, Louis Schanker.

Louis Schanker and Teddy Kollek, long time Mayor of Jerusalem, during  1977 tour of the Israel Museum

For the last 20 years of his life Schanker divided his work between 
his studios in Connecticut and the Hamptons.  The Stamford Studio 
was built on a hill overlooking the main house on the grounds of 
Treetops, the estate which Libby Holman had built in the 1940's.  
Here Schanker is pictured with other local artists who met periodically 
at each others studios. The studio is now the home of  the 
Treetops Chamber Music Society.