As director of Forum Gallery for the past three decades, Robert Fishko has led a Manhattan institution that represents more than two dozen contemporary artists. Robert Fishko also represents the estates of a number of noted artists, including the modernist sculptor Chaim Gross. An emigrant from Austria in the early 1920s, Gross achieved renown for his exuberant wood carvings that portrayed figures ranging from circus performers to mothers with their children.

1. CHAIM GROSS -
EXUBERANT WOOD
CARVINGS OF FIGURES
IN MOTION
By Robert Fishko

2. Introduction
 As director of Forum Gallery for the past three decades,
Robert Fishko has led a Manhattan institution that represents
more than two dozen contemporary artists. Robert Fishko
also represents the estates of a number of noted artists,
including the modernist sculptor Chaim Gross. An emigrant
from Austria in the early 1920s, Gross achieved renown for
his exuberant wood carvings that portrayed figures ranging
from circus performers to mothers with their children.
Gross’ facility with wood as a medium arose from his family
background; his father was a woodcutter in the Austrian
mountains. Attending the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design,
Gross discovered links between European folk traditions and
tribal styles, and began to use exotic woods for carved
sculptures.

3. Chaim Gross
 As did his artist contemporary, Alexander
Calder, Gross found inspiration in the fluid
movements of circus performers, and he
created works such as “Tumbler” (1944) that
featured acrobats in intricate patterns. “Young
Tumbler” (1958) expanded that concept
through the depiction of a female acrobat
balancing an infant. Another seminal work,
“Flying Trapeze on Ice,” was featured in a
2006 Chaim Gross exhibition at Forum Gallery,
and portrays a series of figures propelled
outward in a pattern reminiscent of Henri
Matisse’s “The Dance.”