1. Anthony Gross was born in 1905, at Dulwich, London, the son of the Hungarian cartographer and founder of Geographia Ltd, Alexander Gross, and suffragette Isabelle Crowley.
13 Facts About Anthony Gross
1. 2.
Anthony Gross's sister was the artist, writer and publisher Phyllis Pearsall.
3.
Anthony Gross attended Shrewsbury House School and later Repton School until 1922, and from the following year studied at the Slade School of Fine Art under Henry Tonks.
4.
Anthony Gross co-directed the short film La Joie de vivre with Hector Hoppin in 1934.
5.
In 1941, with a temporary commission of captain, Anthony Gross was attached to the 9th Army and painted within the Egyptian, Syrian, Palestinian, Kurdistan, Lebanese, and Mesopotamian theatres of war, sometimes accompanied by other war artists Edward Ardizzone and Edward Bawden, and later documenting the 8th Army's North African Campaign.
6.
Anthony Gross accompanied the D-Day invasion of Northern France, wading ashore near Arromanches at 2pm on D-Day.
7.
Anthony Gross sketched the beachhead landings and spent the night in a slit trench on the beach before moving inland the next day.
8.
Anthony Gross recorded the devastation of Bayeux and Caen, and followed the Allied armies to Paris and then into Germany.
9.
Anthony Gross witnessed the meeting of American and Russian forces at the River Elbe on 25 April 1945.
10.
Anthony Gross was, at the time, one of the many war artists who painted a portrait of General Montgomery.
11.
From 1948 to 1971 Anthony Gross's work was exhibited in London and New York in one-man shows and as part of The London Group.
12.
Anthony Gross became an honorary member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1979, the same year being elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy; becoming a Senior Academician in 1981, and receiving an CBE in 1982.
13.
Anthony Gross's work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics.