Emil Ganso was a versatile artist and painted a variety of subjects. Ganso became best known for his erotic figures. Eventually he would become the artist in residence at the University of Iowa. In 1933 Ganso won a Guggenheim Fellowship. His paintings are in the following museum collections:

Biblioteque National Paris; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Brooklyn Museum; Cleveland Museum of Art; Kupferstich Cabinet in Berlin; Library of Congress; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art; New York Public Library; Victoria and Albert Museum in London; Whitney Museum of American Art.