East Side Girl

The sculptor Chaim Gross was born in the Carpathian mountains in Austrian Galicia, the son of a lumber merchant. Uprooted by the mayhem of World War I and its aftermath, he settled in New York City in 1921 and pursued the study of sculpting. He became known for direct carving in wood and did not turn to modeling and casting in bronze until the 1950s. He worked in a figurative style. From the 1950s, biblical and Jewish themes dominated his work.