the Explorer

Betty Gross

American Artist

B/D
1925—2015

Betty Gross, nee Betty Bloch was born in New York City and is the inspiration that shaped the initiative for the Almost Forgotten Women Artists series by the Cameron Parsons Foundation. The mystique and synchronicity of this story provoke an otherworldly edge with Cameron perhaps orchestrating the events from the other side.

Interestingly both Betty and Cameron were married to scientists. Betty married Jerome Gross, a famed Harvard MD, and researcher known for his discovery of collagen and the role it plays in the body’s healing, Cameron to rocket scientist, Jack Parsons. Betty’s life was that of a determined painter, a stay-at-home Bostonian mom who was gifted the time and resources that allowed her to pursue her interest in painting by day and host wifely dinner parties for she and her esteemed biologist’s inner circle of the Harvard elite by night. She enjoyed a studio in their family home in Newton, MA and later at their beloved home on Martha’s Vineyard. Both Betty and Cameron read and digested works by Joseph Campbell and perhaps most intriguing is both believed that the artistic expression of archetypes spoke to a deeper meaning of our humanity. As a continuous student of art Betty was especially fascinated with pre-Columbian, African, Mayan and modern art. Her fascinations and influence are seen in her painting and sculptures. Neil Gross, Betty’s eldest son believes, although she was surrounded by intellectuals, she did not trust herself to be considered one.

American painter Betty Gross, a Massachusetts woman artist, with her husband, Harvard biologist Jerome Gross

Betty Gross, Massachusetts painter, with her husband Jerome Gross, Harvard biologist, early 1960s.

“Pre-Columbian art proved to Betty that Civilization was not an act of constantly re-discovering and recycling spectacular achievements of ancient Greece and Rome. Our default mode, in the West, is to attribute all great things to our classical heritage. This absolutely bothered Betty. She was certain it was wrong, wrong, wrong. In the 1970s or 1980s, there were spectacular exhibits in major museums displaying works of African art and in her long shelf of art books high up in her Aquinnah studio, there are many catalogues and books about this. She always had one or more of these catalogues in the living room in our house in Newton Mass. Again, the point for her was the UNIVERSAL sophistication of artistic instincts across all of humanity, everywhere, in all times. This had absolutely nothing to do with “political correctness”. Betty was not pedantic about such things. Her judgement was only about the absolute equality of artistic genius across all regions. It was a categorical conviction based on an aesthetic observation. She’d show you something in one of these books-Africa, or ancient China, or Egypt or Mexico-- and say “Look at this! Isn't it marvelous? Nothing in the world could be this beautiful”. Not just one time and not about one thing. Always, again and again. It was so emotional for Betty, and she didn’t try to package it in fancy concepts or phrases. What strikes me now, thinking back, is how much the universality of creative genius mattered to her. She found it in so many places. Of course, modern and contemporary art, which she probably loved best of all. But also, in the civilizations of the earth.”

— Neil Gross on his mother

Like Cameron’s, quest to connect with the unseen world, Betty felt there were bonds between her and the ancient artists. Neil continues to describe his mother’s enchantment with the cave paintings at Lascaux, France which she visited and had books of in their living room.

“She was absolutely astonished and emotionally overwhelmed by the perfection of those paintings, horses, bison, oryx, deer--the entire artistic sensibility. She wanted to know what the painters were thinking. She read every volume of Jane M. Auel’s “Clan of the Cave Bear” more than once. We all read it, but no one loved them like Betty. My cousin and I used joke about it. We called it “The Clan of the Betty Bear”. But for her, it was all about the visuals, plus some sense that there were bonds between her and those ancient, ancient artists.”

At the age of fourteen Betty began to paint. She studied at the University of Richmond, the Art’s Student League in New York City and furthered her skills under King Coffin at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. In her later years she studied with Paul Stopforth and Roselyn Karol Ablow. She created works using monotypes on Japanese paper and acrylic paint on heavier Stonehenge paper. She also painted in oils and pastels, which evolved into her own abstract symbolism that reflected her process.

Betty, like Cameron had little interest in exhibiting her art. She was a student, passionate artist and explorer. Her work has been showcased at the New Art Center and the Jewish Community Center, both in Boston and at the Gay Head Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard.

Rooted in nature her paintings evoke an emotionality that emphasize the dynamic interplay of color and form. She once described her non narrative “Small Paintings” exhibit, “As layers of color and atmosphere within which we are free to meander. Having worked directly from life and nature for many years in many different media, I am more interested in trying to distill the sights and scenes and colors and shapes of what I see into more abstract terms. I’m interested in change, in abandonment, in retaining the freshness of the process. It’s totally process after a while. I’ll paint something over and over again until it satisfies me. The challenge is getting it right. In these works, visual memories and emotions are taken over by the act of painting itself to create a final image. Playing one color against another, one shape against another, becomes more important than the original inspiration. I don’t paint the daffodils, even though it may be spring.”