Chaim Gross

Chaim Gross (1904-1991, American) was born in the village of Wolowa in Eastern Austria. After World War I, he and his brother Abraham moved first to Vienna and then to Budapest seeking a better life. In 1921 the two brothers traveled to New York. There, Chaim Gross enrolled at the School of the Educational Alliance where he met other young artists including Adolph Gottlieb, Moses and Raphael Soyer and Ben Shahn. Later he studied sculpture at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design under Elie Nadelman, and in 1927 enrolled at the Art Students League to study with Robert Laurent. Gross showed such promise as a student that the Art Students League hired him as a teacher, a position he held for the rest of his life.

Gross achieved recognition as a serious artist and sculptor. He had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in March 1932. Although this was one of the worst years of the Great Depression, Gross was able to sell several works from this exhibition.

While Gross is best known as a sculptor whose works included acrobats, jugglers and family groupings, his drawings done between 1948 and 1952 reflect his emotional response to the death of his elder sister, Sarah, and her family in the Holocaust.

[Source: Museum Staff]