Louis Gross(I)
- Writer
- Producer
Louis Gross was born en route from Eastern Europe while his family was immigrating to the United States to escape persecution against Jews in 1920. The family lived in Brooklyn, New York and later relocated to the Los Angeles Area.
He served in the Navy during WWII where he was stationed in the Marshall Islands repairing airplanes that had been damaged in the Eastern Front. He was able to attend college after the war due to the GI Bill, and taught fine art at Berkeley. Hemarried Edith Miller, a WAVE and a painter, and they had one son.
Louis was a textile artist, photographer, and sculptor. He built a house in Southern California, later lived next door to Anaïs Nin. Nin, Lou and Edie were dear friends, and she wrote about them in her famous diaries. Nin supported their work, helped with the sale of one of his giant, vaguely anthropomorphic wooden pieces to Frank Lloyd Wright. Lou made a film called 'Big Time' with Smokey Robinson in the 1970s which was never released. He divorced and later remarried Roberta Gross.
For decades Lou owned and ran a magnet toy factory, CRDL, that his brother had invented and Lou inherited. He earned international success with the business and that work was featured in the New York Times in 1987. He retired a few years after the turn of the 20th century and died in 2014.
"The good artist always renews our vision by his new way of looking at familiar objects... Louis Gross gives us a new vision of the body, By its concrete incarnation into wood, by various combinations of forms which suggest undulations, curves, valleys, fusions, weddings, he relates the body to nature, to mountains, valleys, slopes, mounds. The silk-smooth surface makes an appeal to the sense of touch, the flow of the wood's veins. Its river routes suggest harmonious connections, fluidity and serious motion. It is a celebration of the body as nature's origin of birth growth, mating, pleasure and beauty.
Louis was also a photographer, and he wove abstract tapestries which he framed. We formed an enduring friendship."
-Anais Nin about Louis Gross
He served in the Navy during WWII where he was stationed in the Marshall Islands repairing airplanes that had been damaged in the Eastern Front. He was able to attend college after the war due to the GI Bill, and taught fine art at Berkeley. Hemarried Edith Miller, a WAVE and a painter, and they had one son.
Louis was a textile artist, photographer, and sculptor. He built a house in Southern California, later lived next door to Anaïs Nin. Nin, Lou and Edie were dear friends, and she wrote about them in her famous diaries. Nin supported their work, helped with the sale of one of his giant, vaguely anthropomorphic wooden pieces to Frank Lloyd Wright. Lou made a film called 'Big Time' with Smokey Robinson in the 1970s which was never released. He divorced and later remarried Roberta Gross.
For decades Lou owned and ran a magnet toy factory, CRDL, that his brother had invented and Lou inherited. He earned international success with the business and that work was featured in the New York Times in 1987. He retired a few years after the turn of the 20th century and died in 2014.
"The good artist always renews our vision by his new way of looking at familiar objects... Louis Gross gives us a new vision of the body, By its concrete incarnation into wood, by various combinations of forms which suggest undulations, curves, valleys, fusions, weddings, he relates the body to nature, to mountains, valleys, slopes, mounds. The silk-smooth surface makes an appeal to the sense of touch, the flow of the wood's veins. Its river routes suggest harmonious connections, fluidity and serious motion. It is a celebration of the body as nature's origin of birth growth, mating, pleasure and beauty.
Louis was also a photographer, and he wove abstract tapestries which he framed. We formed an enduring friendship."
-Anais Nin about Louis Gross