Chaim Gross Studio

An unusual gate fronting a non-descript façade suggests something unusual among the coffee shops, restaurants, and copy shops along LaGuardia Place in the heart of Greenwich Village. Behind the gate is one of the more unique and fairly unknown sights in the Village—the Chaim Gross Studio.

The Chaim Gross Studio houses the work of sculptor Chaim Gross (1904-1991). Born in Austrian Galicia, now part of Ukraine and Poland, Gross began his art studies in Budapest. His studies were interrupted after foreigners were expelled from Hungary. Gross and his family also faced anti-Semitic pogroms back in Austrian Galicia and in the face of violent persecution, Gross immigrated to the United States in 1921.

After settling in New York City, Gross continued his studies at the Educational Alliance on the Lower East Side, beginning a relationship with that institution as a student, patron, and teacher that would last over fifty years. The still-thriving Educational Alliance began as a settlement house for Jewish immigrants that also housed a prominent art school. After completing his education, Gross embarked on his career as an artist, winning commissions for public sculpture in New York, Washington, D.C, and Paris, working with the Works Progress Administration, and mounting solo exhibitions in New York and Philadelphia. The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art selected his work for their permanent collection in the late 1930s. In 1948, Gross joined the art faculty at the New School, where he would teach for decades. His growing prominence in the New York art world was as much a result of the artists he taught and influenced, such as Louise Nevelson, as the critical reputation of his original work.

Gross dreamt of a building that would be a one-person showcase of his work. The building that would eventually house the Chaim Gross Studio began life as a warehouse for the art moving company Berkeley Express. To purchase the building, Gross sold a painting by Joseph Stella to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and moved in in 1962. The Village location of the studio is notable because at the time that Chaim and Renee Gross moved in, the Village was still the epicenter of artistic and avant-garde cultural life in New York and the world. The building served many roles simultaneously—it was a home for Chaim and Renee, it was an exhibition studio, and it was a place for entertaining friends from many different creative fields.

Today, The Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation which oversees the studio is an organization dedicated not only to the work of Chaim Gross, but also to collaborations and exhibitions related to American art history.

A walk through the space advances you chronologically through the life and art of Chaim Gross. Pictures line the entry level of the Foundation, providing a glimpse of Gross’s prominence in the New York art world as well as a sense of the various people, famous and not, who mingled with the Gross family. Some of the people seen in photographs with Chaim and Renee include Helen Keller, Carl Sandburg, and Marilyn Monroe. The entry itself is small and leads to the studio and to a long gallery space, where most of Gross’s art is located.

In the studio, large skylights hover above the workspace with sculptures of different sizes everywhere, and sculpting tools laid out on counters. Ironically, while this area looks exactly like a sculptor’s workspace, in reality Chaim Gross did not work here. The building at LaGuardia Place was an exhibition studio where buyers and museum officials came to see completed pieces and meet with the artist. The work studio where Gross actually made the sculptures was located on Grand Street in the Lower East Side. The basement studio itself is in many ways the direct opposite of a museum experience because of the ability to get very close to the sculptures and touch them. Chaim Gross wanted his sculptures to be tactile and the studio is one of the few places where one can touch and view his work as he intended.

The work in the studio includes some of his earliest pieces from the 1920s and 1930s, made of woods such as ebony, mahogany, and especially lignum vitae, which claims a reputation as one of the hardest and densest woods on earth. The density of lignum vitae appealed to Gross because of the emphasis that he placed on carving in his work. The sculptures revealed his affinity for the figures of women and circus performers in odd poses. The basement is a split-level space and the higher level contains two busts, one of his wife Renee done in sabicu wood completed in 1938 and a self-portrait done in walnut in 1934. A very touching small sculpture, which resembles his beloved acrobats in wood, is located near the counter under the skylights. This sculpture is the final work of Chaim Gross and remains unfinished.

As of September 2009, the second floor is a temporary exhibition space that features exhibits twice a year of sculptures and works on paper by Gross as well as modern European and African art from his personal collection. Recent exhibits have explored American Surrealism and the work of Raphael Soyer.

The third floor is the part of the Foundation that feels the most like a home, which is fitting, since this is where Chaim and Renee Gross lived for forty years. It remains a mostly private and personal section of the building and feels markedly different – warm, covered in rugs and furnishings – from the rest of the building. The space is covered in artworks by Gross and other prominent members of the art world in New York at the time. Many of the artworks on display were obtained as gifts or through exchange and provide an idea of the informal, supportive relationships that artists had with each other.

The most prominent artworks on the third floor are the African sculptures that Gross began collecting in the 1930s. Gross’s interest in African art was shared with other Western artists who were struck by the alternative forms of figuration, creative use of wood, emphasis on carving, and dramatic form. Glass cases that hold Ashanti lost wax bronze cast balances, used for the weighing of gold dust, are also found on the third floor. The third floor gives a sense that Chaim Gross was an enthusiast and an accumulator of things he loved – you are surrounded by Gross’s passions.

The living area of the studio extends to the fourth floor. In the elevator vestibule are many photos of the extended Gross family. This is where Renee Gross lived and maintained the building and foundation after Chaim Gross’s death, and where the the offices of The Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation are located. Today, the Gross’s daughter Mimi—also an artist whose work can be seen in the building—remains directly involved in the running of the foundation.

The Chaim Gross Studio is a uniquely intimate experience that shows the linkage between an artist’s work and his life. A trip to the building at the south end of LaGuardia Place is also a journey back into the artistic heritage of Greenwich Village and introduces you to a figure in the New York art scene at a time when New York was becoming the art capital of the world. A close, even tactile encounter with Chaim Gross’s work gives you a new perspective on the process of creating the works and on different possibilities for viewing the sculpture. At a time when art can seem like a remote exclusive playground to many, a trip to the Chaim Gross Studio can give the visitor an unusually immediate experience with a noted artist that is unique even in New York.

The Foundation website posts announcements about upcoming exhibitions and accompanying programs. The Foundation is open from Tuesday to Friday from 10-5 by appointment. For more information please call (212) 529-4906.

—Charles Miles