Henry Gasser (1909 - 1981 )

Born in Newark, New Jersey on October 31, 1909, Henry Gasser lived and worked in New Jersey his entire life. Gasser was considered a master of both watercolor and oil painting. In his own words, he "painted the “everyday subjects that are available to most of us - street scenes, back yards, trees, old houses, etc. I looked for them in front of houses, in backyards, public parks, and elsewhere.”"

Gasser studied at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts and The Grand Central School of Art. In 1950 he was elected a full academician in the National Academy of Design. Gasser won over 100 national exhibition awards including the Hallgarten Prize, as well as many other awards, medals, and prizes from distinguished societies.

Gasser's paintings were often exhibited at Newark's Rabin & Kreuger Gallery, located at 47 Halsey Street. Among the other New Jersey artists to exhibit there were Louis Eilshemius, Gus Mager, and Adolf Konrad. The gallery also showed work by such artists as Diego Rivera, John Sloan, Moss and Raphael Soyer, Louis Lozowick, Rockwell Kent, and Werner Drewes.(1) Gasser's paintings are owned by more than twenty-eight museums, including the Newark Museum, the Morris Museum in Morristown (NJ), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Gasser served as Director of the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts from 1946 to 1954, then continued lecturing for most of his life. He died in Orange, New Jersey in 1981.

(Nicholas Puma)

(1) William J. Dane, “"A Mini Remembrance of Things Past in Newark's Art World and a Glimpse into a new Golden Era 1950-2995,”" in Newark and Its Painters (exhibition brochure, Pedersen Gallery, Lambertville, NJ, n.d.).

Additional References:

AskArt.com (see link below).

Morris Museum web site (see link below).

Barewalls.com (see link below).

Farm Road

Farm Road, n.d., gouache on paper, Collection of The Morris Museum.

Factory Workers, Newark, New Jersey, 1946.

"The Farm Road," by nature of its subject matter, contains a great deal of “solitary silence.” The painting shows a wintry, snow-covered small town with a curved path; there is also a farmer coming home from work. Gasser used a great range of details, color, and brushstrokes to provide viewers with a visual document of the mid-20th century.

"Factory Workers, Newark, New Jersey," which was painted in 1946, is also characteristic of Gasser's urban New Jersey imagery.

(Nicholas Puma)