Chaim Gross (Austrian/American, 1904 to 1991)
Chaim Gross was born in the Carpathian Mountain Region of Austria. He studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna before his family fled the area during the Russian invasion in World War I. After several years of wandering as refugees, Gross and his brother moved to the U.S. in 1921.
In New York, Gross studied clay modeling under Elie Nedelman (1882 to 1946) at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and worked for a short time with Robert Laurent (1890 to 1970) at the Art Students League. Concentrating on the human figure, Gross was known for creating simplified figural works with interlocking, harmonious forms. His rough surfaced works have a sense of playfulness, exuberance and rhythm, which is enhanced by his preferred subjects of acrobats and performers.
Gross taught at the Beaux-Arts Institute, New School for Social Research, and the Art School of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He was the President of the Sculptors Guild of America and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors.
Information courtesy of Neal Auction Company, October 2008.
Born in Austria, Chaim Gross emigrated to America in 1921. He first studied drawing in night classes at the Educational Alliance art school in New York City while working during the day, then at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, where he was briefly taught by Elie Nadelman. In 1927 he attended the Art Students League, receiving only two months of instruction in direct carving from Robert Laurent. That same year he quit his job in order to concentrate on art and to begin a teaching career in sculpture at the Educational Alliance, which would continue until 1989. Gross eventually developed a direct carving style placing him among the greatest of Twentieth Century figurative sculptors.
Well known for his wood carvings of circus performers, animals and the female form, Chaim Gross worked in a combination of traditional and tribal/folk styles. Following World War II Gross began to focus heavily on his heritage and Judaic themes after losing family members in the holocaust. In the 1970′s he developed numerous major works on the theme of Motherhood.
Gross, however, was also a highly esteemed printmaker, particularly in the field of original lithography. He displayed an interest in drawing at an early age and throughout his life produced a prodigious number of graphic works, many of which were preparatory studies for his sculptures. This effort included pen and ink sketches, watercolors, mixed media and stained glass, with works ranging from simple drawings to designs for taperstries and at least one monumental stained glass window.
Chaim Gross’s works can be seen in the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Smithsonian and most other major art musems. The Chaim Gross Studio Museum, housed in the artist’s former Greenwich Village home and studio, preserves his studio and exhibits a significant collection of his sculpture and graphic work. In addition, Gross maintained a studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts, since the 1940s, where he died in 1991.