Howard Gross began his artistic career in Chicago receiving his MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago during his first solo exhibition at the Alan Frumkin Gallery. The exhibition was in fact presented as Mr. Gross’ graduate thesis. He believes the moments that open that exhibition – first his professors coming to evaluate the work for his degree and then his dealer. Alice Adam entering, followed by him receiving his degree – were prophetic in that it marked for him the first time art dealers and curators came to his defense and offered him support and/or opportunities. One of Howard’s sculptural pieces from this exhibition, Heidi’s Bicycle now resides in the permanent collection of the Weatherspoon Museum.
Following another exhibition at Alan Frumkin Gallery. Howard relocated to New York City where Ivan Karp gave him an opportunity to exhibit at O.K. Harris that was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal. Jock Truman allowed him to exhibit his photographs of art world people with their eyes closed. Known as A Closed Eye Concept. Alana Heiss also included this series in an exhibition at P.S. 1 and The Whitney Museum of Art owns a unique artist book comprised of one hundred of these images.
Next Howard began a series entitled Notes on a String. In this series he began with a spool of white thread and when someone went away on a trip, he gave them a piece of string, asked them to install in somewhere interesting and then send him documentation. The dealer, Florence Lynch allowed Mr. Gross to install one string in her gallery in 2000 surrounded by photographs of it twirling around.
In the meantime, Howard continued the intricate drawings, paintings and sculptures which he had created since Chicago. In 2007, He exhibited his sculptures in an exhibition at Causey Contemporary (then Chi’ Contemporary Fine Art) and in 2009 the gallery exhibited his drawings and paintings. In 2010, His sculptural works again appeared in an exhibition at Lumen Gallery in New York.
In addition, Howard’s works have appeared in group exhibitions at Causey Contemporary, the Tilton Gallery, the Dorsky Gallery, the Truman Gallery and Institute for Art and Urban Resources, all in New York. The Galleries St. Petri, Archive of Experimental and Marginal Art in Lund Switzerland included him in their Tenth Anniversary exhibition and the Artist Book Gallery included them in one of their exhibitions in Paris, France.
As well as having pieces in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum and the Weatherspoon Museum. Howard Gross also has works in the permanent collection of the International Center of Photography in New York and Southern Illinois University Museum in Carbondale, IL.
