b. 1902 d. 1991
Site Affiliation: The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation
Chaim Gross was born in 1902 in Galicia, at the time part of Austria-Hungary, now Ukraine. He came from a Jewish family and was uprooted by the violence of World War I. He studied drawing and painting in Budapest and Vienna before immigrating to the United States in 1921. Upon arrival in New York City, he studied at the Educational Alliance Art School. He studied sculpture with Elie Nadelman at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design and Robert Laurent at the Art Students League in the early and mid-1920s. He had his first solo exhibition of direct carvings in 1932. He is known for his sculptures of acrobats, dancers, and mothers with children, carved in tropical hardwoods.
Primary Medium: Sculpture
Primary Stylistic Term: Modernist
HAHS Affiliations: The Grosses were friends with the artist couple Victor and Mabel D’Amico.
Recommended Publications: The Technique of Wood Sculpture by Chaim Gross (1957); Chaim Gross, Sculptor by Josef Vincent Lombardo (1949); Chaim Gross by Frank Getlein (1974)
Watch: Chaim Gross’ film Trunk to Head