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HENRY MARTIN GASSER (American 1909-1981)
Tournament No. 1: A Newark Gym, c. 1940
Watercolor on paper
23.5in. x 35.5in. (sight size)
Signed lower left: H. Gasser

Provenance: Macbeth Gallery, New York, c. 1950; present owner, c. 1980

Exhibited: Baltimore Water Color Club, 1960 (1st Place Award)

Illustrated: Henry Gasser, Casein Painting: Methods and Demonstrations (New York, NY: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1950), p.18

Tournament No. 1 is a tour de force in Gasser's oeuvre and it is the first of four paintings that make up his Tournament series. It is reported he considered it his best work. Boxing is a quintessential urban sport and subject popularized by Ashcan artist George Bellows with his dynamic ring fight images. Here, Gasser gives a unique interpretation of the boxing subject: rather than adopting the mid-punch action of the fight, he examines the segregated souls that inhabited the Newark New Jersey athletic club of his time. A rare period work of African American art.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Gasser studied at the Newark School of Fine Art and Industrial Art. He later studied at Grand Central School of Art and at the Art Students League in New York City under Robert Brackman and John R. Grabach. Gasser's paintings are housed in prestigious public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Newark Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art.