Rare Nest Gallery in Chicago Rediscovers Treasure of American Jazz Art from 1935 - ‘Village Vanguard’ by Gaspero

CHICAGO, IL, UNITED STATES, April 8, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A Chicago garage sale yielded a treasure of New York City / Greenwich Village and Jazz history: Oronzo Gaspero's 1935 painting features characters at the Village Vanguard in its first year. Rare Nest Gallery's director Keith Bringe believes this is a major find and plans a high quality limited edition print.

Bringe remembers, "The Frame was filthy - the glass was almost opaque and it was impossible to tell if it was an original or a print. I decided to take a low-risk swing and offered $20. It wasn't until I got it back to the Gallery and removed the frame and filthy glass that I realized I had something of real importance. What attracted me to the piece was it's exploration of the surrealist style with carefully rendered figures with ghostly outlines, glowing and semi-transparent characters. At the same time, profuse notes written in the artist's hand promised a rich research source."

“The Village Vanguard” 1935, by Oronzo Gasparo
Painting: 15 x 11 inches, mounted with notes and borders 18 x 12 inches. Notations on verso undiscovered.
Signed, dated. gouache, ink and watercolor on illustration board mounted on additional cardboard backing with extensive notations in the artist’s hand describing the characters depicted in the image – New York Bohemian society of the 1930’s including Max Gordon and Joe Gould. Additional notes en verso – (dated 1935).

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Oronzo Vito Gasparo (1903–1969), was known for surreal paintings, design, and crafts. Gasparo was born in Rutigliano, Bari, Italy in 1903, one of seventeen children. His parents were Italian and Hindu. Gasparo studied at the National Academy of Design in New York. He worked under the WPA Easel Project during the Great Depression. Gasparo's works were acquired by Onya La Tour, to whom this piece is dedicated. La Tour was an avid collector, gallerist and enthusiast of modern art in New York in the 1930s, and who directed the Federal Art Gallery of the Federal Arts Project of the Works Projects Administration,
He spent many active years in California and died in New York City in 1969. Gasparo had over 40 one-person exhibitions ranging in date from 1928 to 1974.

The image depicts the internationally famous Village Vanguard in the first year of its existence and - in an intensely surrealist light - inhabited by ghost-like, transparent figures and tiny vignettes - talismans of the Bohemian East Village in its heyday. The piece bears a dedication date of 1936 to “Anya La Tour with best of luck from Oranzo Gaspero” - though the verso is dated 1935 under loose lower left corner, in ink. (Dedicatee: AKA Onya La Tour). See below.
Depicts several double portraits.

PORTRAITS SUBJECTS
Oronzo Gaspero (self-portrait)
Max Gordon (founder of the Village Vanguard which - originally called the Golden Triangle).
Joe Gould, an eccentric character and chronicler of Bohemian Society, wrote the world’s longest book
Dorothy Kieren (1907-1992)
Maggie Egri: coatcheck girl at the Village Vanguard and dancer / choreographer
John Rose Gildea {a.k.a. John Rose Gilday [Gildea], known in the context of 1930’s East Village Bohemians, i.e. poets, writers, drunks and habitues.
Onya LaTour (Ona Alberta Tarr), B. 1896, Salem, Indiana

Rare Nest Gallery is planning a life-size, archival and limited print of the image.

Keith Bringe
Rare Nest Gallery Chicago
+1 708-616-8671
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