Ivan Ganser

Ivan Laurence Ganser was born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1906. When he was 23, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and began attending the Kansas City Art Institute. He studied with Wallace Rosenbauer, a sculptor, and Ross Braught, a painter and lithographer. Their dual influence left a strong impression on Ganser, and in 1935 he won two prizes in the Midwestern Artists' Exhibition, one for oil painting and one for sculpture. 

During the late 1930s, Ganser was hired as District Supervisor for the Works Project Administration in Missouri while teaching ceramics class at the newly established Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Then he was drafted into the military for World War II and spent several years abroad serving in the Air Force. Upon returning to Kansas City in 1946, he married Elizabeth Bucher, a Kansas Citian and recent graduate of the University of Missouri, Kansas City. 

Ivan Ganser was hired as a ceramics instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1947, inspiring a period of intensive technical study and experimentation. The Nelson-Atkins had recently acquired a collection of Chinese pottery made during the late 1600s under Emperor Kangxi. Ganser was determined to reproduce the lost recipe of their bright red "ox-blood" glaze. After 3,000 tests, Ganser finally achieved an identical surface. Ross Taggart, a senior curator at the Nelson-Atkins, deemed his final pieces "as close to the originals as anything I have ever seen" (Kansas City Star, May 2, 1958). Between 1947-1957, Ganser helped strengthen Kansas City's interest in ceramic art that would eventually flourish through a network of studios and galleries. 

In addition to his role as an educator, Ganser was active in local arts organizations. He spent many years as a curator at the Kansas City Museum. He was a member of the Kansas City Society of Artists, the Artists' Equity Association, and the Mid-America Art Association. Elizabeth "Betty" Ganser also played an important role in fostering the arts in Kansas City. She was chairman of the Gertrude Woolf Lighton studios (the Society of Artists' headquarters) and she ran the Art Institute's supply store. In 1949, Betty Ganser was interviewed for the Kansas City Star about her creative practice of refurbishing used furniture. 

In 1970, Ivan and Betty Ganser left Kansas City and moved to Hamilton, Missouri, to live closer to his family. Three years later, Ivan Ganser died unexpectedly at age sixty-four. Betty Ganser then moved to Denver, Colorado, and lived there until her death in 2002 at age ninety.