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| Les Glaciers |
1905 - 1984
Trained at Slade and Central Schools (1923) but he soon moved to Paris to study painting and engraving at the Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. After a period of travelling and study at art school in Madrid, Gross returned to Paris where he shared a studio with S W Hayter and learnt engraving and printing techniques from Joseph Hecht. Continued to travel extensively until 1930 when he settled in Paris after marrying French fashion artist Marcelle Marguerite Florenty. During the 30s and 40s the focus of Gross’ career widened from print-making to include involvement in the film industry. His most successful of several cartoon films was ‘La Joie de Vivre’, which was bought by MOMA, New York, in 1935. He also developed skills as a book illustrator, working on Cocteau’s ‘Les Enfants Terribles’.
Over the period of the war he was commissioned as a war artist with postings in the Middle East, India, Burma, Northern France and Germany. Post-war, Gross exhibited regularly, was elected a member of the London Group in 1948 and began to teach life drawing at the Central School and print-making at the Slade. In 1955, Gross bought a house in Le Boulve, in the Lot region of France, and this became the setting for most of his increasingly abstract paintings and etchings from the mid-50s.
In 1980 he was elected a Royal Academician and in the same year awarded a prize for the most distinguished painting in the RA Summer Show. He was appointed CBE in 1984. Over the life span of his career Gross produced over 100 oils and 1,000 watercolours, plus hundreds of etchings, engravings and lithographs.
Exhibitions Include:
Leicester Galleries (1934); Victoria & Albert Museum; Royal Academy; London Group