Elliot Ross was born in Chicago. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1971. His work has been exhibited widely and is in collections in the United States and abroad, e.g. Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris (FR); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (USA); and the Art Museum of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque (USA).
He lives in San Francisco"Yehudhith" is an exhibition of original work from the artist's book Yehudhith: Photographs by Elliot Ross with Texts About Women and the Holocaust. The exhibition includes 44 anonymous portraits of Jewish women (selenium- toned silver gelatin prints) as well as texts excerpted from sources that range from Charlotte Delbo to Adolf Hitler. They are simultaneously contemporaries and women who lived sixty years ago...Their images are pictures of sisters, friends, and young mothers, and, at the same time, darkening photographs of lives just about to be lost. Ross's book is a narrative of Jewish women's experience under the Nazis. The pictures - each one black and white, each one cast in different shadows - are evocative and mesmerizing.
SELECTED ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS
Yehudhith, Stredoslovénska galeriá, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, 2007.
Yehudhith, Prague House of Photography, Prague, Czech Republic, 2005.
Yehudhith, Muzeum SNP, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, 2005.
Yehudhith, House of Photography, Poprad, Slovakia 2005.
Yehudhith, Jewish Museum San Francisco, California, USA, 2004.
Spleen (after Baudelaire), Side Street Projects, Santa Monica, California, USA, 1996.
Spleen (after Baudelaire),Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee, USA 1994.
Spleen (after Baudelaire), Photography Gallery, Department of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,
Indiana, USA, 1994.
Spleen (after Baudelaire), The Light Factory Center for Photographic Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, 1994.
Spleen (after Baudelaire), Gallery, Department of Cinema and Photography, Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale, Illinois, USA, 1993.
Spleen (after Baudelaire), WorkSpace Art Gallery, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 1992.
Spleen (after Baudelaire), Feldheym Library Galleries, San Bernardino, California, USA, 1991.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
PHOTOGRAPHERS:NETWORK, SELECTION 2009, studio Thomas Kellner, Siegen, Germany, 2009.
New Works/Old Story, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, California, USA, 2009.
Scents of Purpose, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, California, USA, 2005.
Artists' Books from Nashville Collections, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee, USA,
2003.
Face to Face: Contemporary Portraits, University Art Gallery, California State University, Chico, California, USA,
2001.
Neural Notations (traveling exhibition),
San Francisco Art Commission Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA, 2000
Sesnon Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA, 2000.
The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2001.
San Francisco Art Institute: Fifty Years of Photography, Trans-America Pyramid, San Francisco, California, USA,
1996.
Forecast: Shifts in Direction, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, 1994.
The Post-Industrial Landscape, San Francisco Art Commission Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA, 1994.
Visible Language, New Works Gallery, University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1993.
Six Photographers, Hung Chong Art Gallery, Taipei, China, 1991.
The Concealed Camera, Eye Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA, 1988.
Cross Currents II: Recent Additions to the Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco,
California, USA, 1986.
Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, Eye Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA, 1986.
Extending the Perimeters of Twentieth-Century Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco,
California, USA, 1985.
Past Presence/Contemporary Sources, College of Notre Dame Art Gallery, Belmont, California, USA, 1985.
Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, Ruth Braunstein Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA, 1981.
San Francisco Camerawork Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA, 1979.
The Eyes Have It: Photographic Images, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA,
1976.
Photo/Synthesis, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, 1976.
Information, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, USA, 1975.
Light and Substance (traveling exhibition curated by Van Deren Coke),
Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, 1973.
Claremont College, Pomona, California, USA, 1974.
University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 1974.
Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York, USA, 1974.
San Francisco Art Institute Centennial Exhibition, M.H. DeYoung Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California,
USA, 1971.
Critic's Choice, Focus Gallery, San Francisco, California, USA, 1971.
WORKS IN SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, USA.
Musée de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium.
Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California, USA.
University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, USA.
Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley, California, USA.
Pomona College Museum of Art, Pomona, California, USA.
WORKS IN SELECTED ARTISTS' BOOKS COLLECTIONS
Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, USA.
The Tate, London, England.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York, USA.
Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand.
Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
«Artists reflect on the seder plate,» Laura Thomas, San Francisco Chronicle, April 5, 2009.
«Tierportaits des US-Fotokünstlers Elliot Ross,» (Masterpiece of Photography Series #15), Manfred Zollner,
fotoMAGAZIN, Nr. 7, Juli 2008.
«Auf der Suche nach den Stars von morgen,» Manfred Zollner, fotoMAGAZIN.de, June 23, 2008.
«Houston FotoFest — Entdeckungen vom Meeting Place,» Anna Gripp, Photonews, Mai 2008.
«Výstava fotografií o holocauste,» Martin Krupa, VÚC BB Portál, June 25, 2007.
«Prazsky dum fotografie: Elliot Ross - Yehudhith,» Peter Volf, Combinacion, September 4, 2005.
«Se smutkem ve tvári, s hrodosti v dusi,» Lubor Falteisek, Maskil, September/October 2005.
«Zenske telo a holocaust,» Edita Pacovska, fotografovani.cz, September 2, 2005.
«O ženství a o židovství,» Libuše Mohelská, DIGIarena.cz, August 25, 2005.
«Schatten des Holocaust,» Bára Procházková, Radio Prague, radio.cz, August 22, 2005.
«Ross hleda v tvarich zen stigma holocaustu,» Magdalena Cechlovska, Kultura, August 18, 2005.
«Poselstvi zidovskych zen,» Josef Chuchma, iDNES.cz, August 12, 2005.
«Fotograf Elliot Ross a smutek židovských ženaa,» Jiří Vanča, Pikant, August 3, 2005.
«Out of the Darkroom: Photos of Modern Jewish Women Spin Shoah into New Light,» Joe Eskenazi, J, April, 2005.
«Aj ja som sa mohol stoť jednou z obeti,» Andrea Kopernická, Sme, February 16, 2005.
«They Are Haunting Photographs that Recall a Time the World Will Never Forget…» Jonathan Curiel, San
Francisco Chronicle, May 15, 2004.
«Face to Face: Contemporary Portraits' at CSU Chico,» Zu Vincent, Artweek, November, 2001.
«It Came from California,» Andrew Paul Wood, Log Illustrated Magazine, Issue 13, 2001.
«'Neural Notations' at the San Francisco Art Commission Gallery,» Debra Koppman, Artweek, Volume 31, Issue 4,
April, 2000.
Photographers Encyclopaedia International, Michel and Michele Auer, Ides et Calendes, Neuchatel (Switzerland),
1997.
«The Sine Wave of Time,» Bruce Nixon, Artweek, Vol. 25, No. 18, September 22, 1994.
«Elliot Ross,» Daniel Cooper, Number: An Independent Quarterly of the Visual Arts, Spring, 1994.
«Camera Sheds Light on Dark Poet,» Alan Bostick, The Tennessean, January 16, 1994.
«Visible Language,» Kathryn Hixson, The New Art Examiner, January 1994.
Auer Index of Photographers 1839 to the Present, Ed. Camera Obscura, Hermance, Switzerland and Maison
Européenne de la Photo, Paris, 1992.
Hsiung Shih Art Monthly, August 1991.
«The Concealed Camera,» Photo Metro, Vol.6, Issue 57, March 1988.
«Images Captured In Secret,» Darwin Marable, Artweek, Vol. 19, No. 9, April 20, 1985.
Art in the San Francisco Bay Area 1945-1980: An Illustrated History, Thomas Albright, University of California
Press, 1985, (appendix: Bay Area Artists).
«Connections With the Past,» Rebecca Solnit, Artweek, Vol.16, No. 16, April 20, 1985.
«Spleen,» Left Curve, No. 10, 1985.
Photo Metro, Vol. 2, No. 12, September 1983.
«The Center Shifts,» Robert Atkins, San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 22-31, 1979.
«Politics As Viewed Through Art,» Cathy Curtis, Berkeley Independent and Gazette, November 23, 1980.
«The Art of Photography,» Robert Atkins, San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 22-31, 1979.
Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 1979.
Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle, October 22, 1976.
«Mixed Media Exhibit Notable,» Richard Ames, Santa Barbara News Press, September 28, 1974.
«In San Francisco,» John Marlowe, West Art, April 1974.
«Fine Arts,» Sylvia Brown, City Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 36, April 3-16, 1974.
«Camera Purism to the Extreme,» Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle, April 1, 1974.
«Light & Substance,» A.D. Coleman, Popular Photography, March 1974.
«Light and Substance,» Leland Rice, Artweek, March 30, 1974.
«Three at the Quay,» Barbara Manger, Artweek, July 15, 1972.
Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle, June 24, 1972.
«Richmond Painting Biennial,» Cecile N. McCann, Artweek, January 8, 1972.
CATALOGS
New Works Old Story: 80 Artists at the Passover Table, essay by David Revere McFadden, Contemporary Jewish
Museum, San Francisco, 2009.
Scents of Purpose: Artists Interpret the Spice Box, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, 2005.
Photo Month in Krakow, Poland, November, 2004.
Neural Notations, Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2000.
Forecast: Shifts in Direction, Van Deren Coke, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, 1994.
Six Photographers, Hung Chong Gallery, Taipei, China, 1991.
Cross Currents II: Recent Additions to the Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1986.
Extending the Perimeters of Twentieth-Century Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1985.
Past Presence/Contemporary Sources, Andrea Liss, College of Notre Dame Art Gallery, Belmont, California, 1985.
Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, Ruth Braunstein Gallery, San Francisco, 1981.
80 Langton Street, San Francisco, May 1976 through May 1977.
San Francisco Bay Area Photography 1976, Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art, San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, 1977.
Photo/Synthesis, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1976.
Light and Substance, Henry Barendse, comment by Joseph Deal, University of New Mexico Art Museum,
Albuquerque, 1973.
San Francisco Art Institute Centennial Exhibition, 1971.
Schilt Publishing Gallery is a commercial gallery that operates globally from the physical space in Amsterdam. We intend to organise major survey exhibitions at least a couple of times per year showcasing one of our photographers.
From 24th January - 12th April 2015 we are proud to present Animals by Elliot Ross, an exhibition comprising photographs from both of Elliot's acclaimed series 'Animal', 2010, and 'Other Animals', 2014.
©Elliot Ross
In the case of our relationship with animals, a sense of the difficulty with reality may involve... a sense of astonishment and incomprehension that there should be beings so like us, so unlike us; so astonishingly capable of being companions of ours and so unfathomably distant.
©Elliot Ross
How powerfully strange it is that they ...
They are an unusual find, among the clutter of our internet-animal-pictures saturated world. For a start, here are no cutesy kittens anywhere in sight. These photographs literally stop you in your tracks, back you up, and first make you look, and then they make you really see these beings that share our planet...the first steps to a truly valuable inter-species encounter.
© Elliot Ross
Like Avedon and Penn before him, Mr. Ross removes all background noise, simply by removing all the background. He often does this pixel by pixel, so there is no context...no distractions from locales which would blind us to the presence...the particular nature of these creatures...the elegance of their morphology, the purity of their beings, and even the fun of their fur.
How much can a photograph teach you? In one o...
Elliot Ross has big questions about relationships between the species, which he explores in his photographic series Animal.
"Each image in Animal is not only a portrait of a non-human animal; it is, in many ways, a self-portrait," says Ross. "And also a question; what can be known and what is unknowable about individuals of other animal species?"
Animal is featured in the Griffin Gallery of the Griffin Museum January 21 through March 28. An opening reception with the artist is January 21, 7-9 PM.
In describing the underlying question of his series, Ross quotes contemporary American philosopher Cora Diamond. "In the case of our relationship with animals, a sense of the difficulty with reality may involve... a sense of astonishment and incomprehension that there should be beings so like us...
It is an odd way for a Jewish man to begin a book about the Holocaust, with a quote from Adolf Hitler. But so begins Elliot Ross's collection of photographs, Yehudhith, with a picture of a woman holding a violin and, facing her, a quote from Mein Kampf—Hitler musing (horribly) about the Jews who had lived in Linz, Austria for centuries, becoming what Hitler calls "Europeanized," taking on "a human look," until, he says, "even I took them for Germans."
And, indeed, the woman in Ross's photograph does look German. She is blond, fair-skinned, strong-chinned. The violin and bow she holds are veritable signifiers of high Mittel Europa culture at the turn of the last century. We can imagine her as the daughter of a prosperous burgher of Linz, the city that welcomed Hitler so joyously into its main square, our violin player...