The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation

Chaim Gross (1902-1991) was a renowned sculptor who emigrated to the United States in 1921. Gross and his wife Renee, who married in 1932, lived for three decades in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. In 1963, the couple purchased the four-story townhouse and studio space that now houses the foundation bearing their names.

Prior to moving to New York City, Gross led a peripatetic life. He was born in what was then the Kingdom of Hungary, in a part of Central Europe where national boundaries changed multiple times in the 20th-century. Gross was born to a Jewish family and during this period, this part of Europe also experienced severe antisemitism, both official (i.e.: bans against certain occupations) and personal.

Gross studied art in Budapest and Vienna prior to emigrating and then at several art schools in New York. Around the time that he began exhibiting in group shows, Gross transitioned from student to instructor. He would go on to teach printmaking and sculpture for 50 years at various New York institutions and as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), for which he also produced several early commissions. Gross was the author of the influential instructional guide, The Techniques of Wood Sculpture (1957).

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden owns 27 works by Gross and other pieces are held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and other public and private collections. A large-scale bronze, The Family (1979), is installed in Bleecker Playground, a 0.7-mile walk from the sculptor’s studio, both in Greenwich Village.

The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation was established in 1974, incorporated 15 years later as a not-for-profit, and opened its doors to the public in 2009. The foundation is the steward for over 12,000 objects that include sculptures, drawings, and prints by the artist; a photographic archive; and a large personal collection of African, Oceanic, Pre-Columbian, American, and European art that remains installed as Gross and his wife had it displayed during his lifetime.

The foundation is a member of the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The LaGuarda Place property provides an opportunity to appreciate the work of one of America’s preeminent direct carvers and the studio where he created much of his art, as well as the home he shared with his wife and the extensive collection of artwork they admired, presented as the couple lived with it in the second half of the 20th-century.