Having fled eastern Austria because of the persecution of Jews, it was in Budapest, in 1916, that Gross had his first formal instruction in art when he won a full scholarship to an art school in that city. He arrived in New York in 1921 and continued his studies at the Educational Alliance Art School, through which he formed his friendship with the Soyer brothers, Moses and Raphael. He also attended the BeauxÄArts Institute of Design, where he worked under Elie Nadelman, to 1926. Gross then entered the Art Students League for a brief period of study with Robert Laurent, and at the same time began teaching at the Educational Alliance school, which would remain his principal teaching association for more than a quarter century.
Gross worked predominately as a sculpture, with circus performers and gymnasts a favorite early theme, although he would later become equally known for his highly imaginative drawings, lithographs, and watercolors. He was a leader in the modernist movement to return to direct carving, especially in hard, beautifully grained woods. From his first one-man exhibition, at Gallery 144 in New York, in 1932, Gross's career and fame progressed steadily. His Offspring--Handlebar Riders was awarded a silver medal in the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1937, and was acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art. Active in the federal arts projects of the Great Depression years, among his commissions under these programs was Riveters, 1938, for the Federal Trade Commission Building, Washington, D. C. For the New York World's Fair of 1939, Gross executed Harvest, a sixteen foot high relief in plaster for the France Overseas building, and another gigantic sculpture, Linesman, for the Finland building. In 1942 his Lillian Leitzel won a purchase prize in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Artists for Victory exhibition. The following year he began a six-year long period of teaching at the Museum of Modern Art Peoples Art Center, and in 1948 he joined the faculty of the New School for Social Research, New York. From 1943 Gross spent his summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 1949, he made the first of many trips to Isreal, on this occasion as one of eleven artists who had assembled a large group of American paintings for presentation to the State of Isreal.
From the early 1950s commissions, exhibitions and honors have come to Gross in abundance. In 1964 he was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. October 27, 1976 was proclaimed Chaim Gross Day by the Manhattan Borough president. Among the many awards garnered by his sculptures were those awarded by the Academy: the Watrous medal in 1979 and 1984; Sawyer Prize 1989
Gross's later public works were a large bronze Isaiah, 1979, for Holy Cross College; The Family of Five and Tourists for a Fort Lauderdale (Florida) Shopping Center; Monument to Education for the Jewish Community Center, Tenafly, New Jersey, all 1980; and in 1981, the bronze Pillar of Faith, commissioned for the school on Mount Gilo, Jerusalem.
