Rainer Gross

In 1973, Rainer Gross (b.1951 Cologne, Germany) left his studies in Fine Art at the Cologne Werkkunstschule to come to New York City, where he continued his art career at a time when many proclaimed the “end of painting.” Gross’ reaction to this is rooted in his connection to the painterly heritage of traditional European Art and its usage of iconography in harmony with his desire to bring these historical traditions into the present. The dense and weathered surfaces of his paintings, realized through layers of pressed pigments, do just this, particularly in his series of Logo paintings, which appropriate fragments of logos representing brands and consumers today.

Rainer Gross currently lives and works in New York City. He has had major solo shows nationally and internationally including a recent retrospective at Museum Ludwig (Koblenz, Germany). Gross’ paintings are in numerous public collections, including the AT&T Corporate Art Collection, the Cohen Family Collection, the UBS Union Bank of Switzerland and the Lowe Art Museum amongst others. Reviews of his work have been published in The Paris Review, The New York Times, Art in America, The Boston Globe, ArtNews, The Brooklyn Rail, and many others.

Lives and works in New York City.