From Generation to Generation:
The Upbringing and Art of
Mimi Gross (born 1940, New York)

Mimi Gross is the daughter of well-known sculptor Chaim Gross (1902–1991). She grew up to become an artist and one obvious question one might ask is how her work was influenced by and/or diverged from her father’s work. But both Chaim and his wife Renee were immigrants–so New York City-born Mimi grew up as an American in an immigrant household, which might raise the question: were there issues derived from the particulars of her growing up that affected her and her art–and might one imagine the curve of her life as different in a non-immigrant context, or a context experienced at a different time in American and world history?

These and other questions are discussed in a dialogue between Mimi Gross and Georgetown University Professor Ori Z Soltes. Rachel Stern, Founder and CEO of the Fritz Ascher Society, introduces the program.

Image above: Mimi Gross, Songs of the Senses, 1991. Installation at Inax Gallery, Japan © Mimi Gross

Mimi Gross is a painter, as well as a set-and-costume designer, and maker of interior and exterior installations.  She has lived and worked in TriBeCa for the last 40 years, and is known especially for her portraiture, and for working with oil crayon and chalk pastel, in addition to oil paint. Gross considers portraiture a form of mutual collaboration. Her paintings have a poignant expressiveness and connection to the subject. Hers is a world of bold, unapologetic color.  The directness of Gross’s portraiture, and her propensity to paint all aspects of her community can be linked in particular to the work of Alice Neel, who was a close friend.
Gross’s work can be found in the collections of the Jewish Museum, New York; the New York Public Library; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She is the recipient of awards and grants including from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for Visual Arts, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and a “Bessie” for sets and costumes. Gross grew up in South Harlem in Manhattan. Her father was Chaim Gross, the sculptor known for woodcarving, and her parents were consummate art collectors.