Chaim Gross

Born in Austria, Chaim Gross came to the United States in 1921 to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming an artist. He studied sculpture at the Educational Alliance Art School from 1921-1927 in New York City and received a strong classical education. There he studied with Ben Shahn (1898-1969) and Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974). Over time he turned away from the classical forms of sculpture and adopted a more abstract style.

EXTENDED BIO

Chaim Gross (March 17, 1904 - May 5, 1991) was an Austrian born American sculptor. He was born in the then Austro-Hungarian village of Kolomyia (since 1991, in the Ukraine) and immigrated to the United States in 1921. His art studies began at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna shortly before he moved to the United States, where it continued at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design where he studied with Elie Nadelman and at the Art Students League of New York, with Robert Laurent.

Gross began exhibiting both his sculpture and graphic art in 1935, and was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of 1949.

Primarily Gross was a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States.

Gross was a professor of printmaking and sculpture at both the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research in New York City, as well as a member of Artists Equity, the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. He was a founder and served as the first president of the Sculptors Guild.

His daughter is the artist Mimi Gross.

REFERENCES

Brummé, C. Ludwig, Contemporary American Sculpture, Crown Publishers, New York, 1948

Lombardo, Josef Vincent, Chaim Gross: Sculptor, Dalton House, Inc., New York, 1949

Opitz, Glenn B, Editor, Mantle Fielding’s Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Book, Poughkeepsie NY, 1986