Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
American, 1909-1981
Henry Martin Gasser was an American painter in every sense. From his working-class industrial town, he sought out the greatest artists in the area in order to study from them and found inspiration in his backyard. Through persistence and a spirit of originality, Gasser turned humble scenes of urban American life in the mid-twentieth century into extraordinary works of art that were widely praised by the art world. After achieving fame for his paintings, he extended his reach further by educating future artists and writing instructional books on his innovative techniques.
Gasser was born in Newark, New Jersey, where he lived for most of his life. He studied painting at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts as well as the Grand Central School of Art and the Art Students League in New York City. The well-known artist John R. Grabach (1886–1981), a fellow New Jersey native, privately tutored Gasser, and the two artists developed a close relationship.
Despite its highly individualistic style, Gasser’s work still fits neatly into the tradition established by his American predecessors. In addition to exhibiting influence from Grabach, Gasser’s realist depictions of everyday life continued the legacy of the Ashcan painters. The majority of Gasser’s work portrays his native New Jersey. By the time he reached artistic maturity in the mid-twentieth century, Newark had become a major industrial center. Such cities, although the life force of American industry and ingenuity, were not known for their scenic qualities. Nonetheless, Gasser found beauty in his surroundings. His artworks typically feature urban scenes, such as residential streets lined with houses and blue-collar suburban communities. Along with painting in New Jersey and New York, he embarked on excursions with Grabach to New England to capture coastal views and winter scenery. During World War II, Gasser was stationed in South Carolina as a sergeant in a Visual Aid Unit of the army, where he painted the vibrant Southern culture surrounding him.
Although adept at painting with oils, he found his stride in watercolors. Paralleling his ability to transform unassuming subjects into captivating pictures, Gasser elevated watercolor—a medium that was more common at the time for preliminary sketches or commercial use—to a fine art.
During his life, Gasser exhibited his paintings widely to remarkable critical acclaim. He was honored with numerous solo exhibitions in New York and New Jersey and was included in group exhibitions at the country’s finest museums and galleries. Gasser won more than one hundred exhibition prizes nationally, including the prestigious Hallgarten Prize awarded by the National Academy of Design. Gasser was actively engaged in the art community, belonging to over twenty organizations, including the Allied Artists of America, the Art Students League, the National Arts Club, and the Salmagundi Club. He served as vice president of both the National Academy of Design and the American Watercolor Society, and designed the latter’s certificate of membership. to
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Artist: Henry Martin Gasser
Gloucester Vista
By Henry Martin Gasser
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right: H. GASSER; on verso: “Gloucester Vista” / HENRY GASSER / N.A.
Category
20th Century American Modern Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor, Gouache
Man in a Rowboat
By Henry Martin Gasser
Located in New York, NY
In his watercolor painting, “Man in a Rowboat,” Henry Martin Gasser paints a man standing in a small boat on a creek between two houses; power lines stretch across the sky above.
Category
1950s Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Archival Paper, Pencil
New Orleans Street Scene
By Henry Martin Gasser
Located in New York, NY
Henry Martin Gasser depicts a man walking down a New Orleans sidewalk past the facades of two buildings, while a woman cleans a porch above and an...
Category
1950s Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
Materials
Watercolor, Archival Paper, Pencil
Harbor in Winter
By Henry Martin Gasser
Located in New York, NY
Henry Martin Gasser paints a coastal harbor town blanketed in white snow in his artwork entitled, “Harbor in Winter.”
Category
Mid-20th Century Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Newark Street Snow Scene in Sunlight with Figures
By Henry Martin Gasser
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right: H. GASSER
Category
20th Century American Modern Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
Materials
Paper, Watercolor
On the Seashore
By Henry Martin Gasser
Located in New York, NY
Signed lower right: H. GASSER
Category
20th Century American Modern Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Sunlit Bay
By Henry Martin Gasser
Located in New York, NY
On verso: H GASSER
Category
Mid-20th Century Modern Henry Martin Gasser Paintings
Materials
Oil, Board
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Vintage Impressionist Painting of Flower Sellers in Rome by Henry Gasser
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Antique impressionist view of Rome by Henry Gasser (1909 - 1981). Watercolor on paper, circa 1940. Signed. Displayed in a period wood frame. Image, 10"L x 8"H, overall 17"L x 15"H.
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Henry Martin Gasser (1909 - 1981)
Snow Parking
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Impressionist seascape "Surf Motif II" by Henry Martin Gasser (1909 - 1981). Oil on board, circa 1940. Signed lower right, "H. Gasser". Displayed in a period and possibly the ori...
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House on the Hill
By Henry Martin Gasser
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Rue St. Andre des Arts, Paris
By Henry Martin Gasser
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HENRY MARTIN GASSER
"RUE SANIT ANDRE DES ARTS, PARIS"
WATERCOLOR AND GOUACHE, SIGNED
AMERICAN, C.1960S
22 X 15 INCHES
Henry Martin Gassert
1909-1981
Gasser was an American artist, teacher, and author whose social-realist paintings depicting life in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey and wintry, snow-laden renderings of the towns and harbors along the North Shore of Massachusetts earned him much attention and acclaim during the first half of the twentieth century.
He also executed many critically praised works during his travels throughout Europe and during a brief but highly productive sojourn to the island of Bermuda in 1949.
Known primarily for his watercolors, he worked in a variety of mediums, including oil, gouache, and casein.
Gasser was born on October 31, 1909, in Newark, New Jersey. He began sketching and painting scenes of his hometown as a boy. Formally, his education in art began at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, followed by a period of study at the Grand Central Art School in New York City.
He went on to enroll at the Art Students League, also in New York, where he took classes with Robert Brackman, a renowned figurative artist and teacher of Ukrainian origin who painted portraits of many of the era’s leading public figures, including John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Charles Lindbergh, and American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
But Gasser’s primary artistic influence was the prominent “Ashcan School” painter John Grabach, with whom Gasser took private lessons and who, besides serving as a mentor to the young artist, became a father-figure as well. Grabach’s portrayals of the everyday lives of working-class individuals in Newark and New York City, particularly his ability to accurately and poignantly capture the expressions and moods of his often downtrodden subjects within the context of a deceptively provincial compositional structure, earned his skills a place alongside the most highly regarded social-realist painters of his time; in 1980, the Smithsonian Institute paid him homage by mounting a solo retrospective of his work, a highly unusual tribute for a still-living artist.
Gasser’s early works, featuring the backstreets of an already decaying urban landscape filled with dilapidated row-houses and lines of laundry hanging from windows, echo in subject, style, and composition the social-realist precepts passed down to him by Grabach and other like-minded painters whom Gasser emulated, such as John Sloan and George Luks. Both Gasser and Grabach were deeply affected by the suffering brought about by the Great Depression, and many of Gasser’s early scenes include people seemingly “worn down” by life, bent over and bracing themselves against the cold winter chill, often requiring the aid of canes. Gary Erbe...
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Harbor in Bermuda
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Henry Martin Gasser paintings for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Henry Martin Gasser paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. Not every interior allows for large Henry Martin Gasser paintings, so small editions measuring 12 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Eric Sloane, Herbert Kornfeld, and Paton Miller.