Born in the Bronx, Louis Schanker had an early interest in art and music. He took art courses with Barnett Newman, Milton Avery and Mark Rothko and later shared a studio with the Soyer brothers, Chaim Gross and Adolph Gottlieb. In 1931-1932 Schanker attended art classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and returned to New York somewhat a Cubist. In 1935, Schanker, with artists Ilya Bolotowsky, Ben-Zion, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Joseph Solman, Tschacbasov, Louis Harris and Ralph Rosenborg formed a group called The Ten, that protested the lack of support for American abstract artists by the Whitney Museum, which concentrated on representational art.Schanker was also a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, (AAA) which arose to promote and foster public understanding of abstract art. Schanker was one of many members of the AAA who chose to base his art in the objects, patterns and rhythms of nature. Although much of Schanker's later work is completely abstract, during the 1930s and 1940s he frequently used direct identifiable themes - and even socially conscious subjects not normally employed by abstract artists. Schanker’s work can be seen at The Whitney Museum, The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum, NY among others.