Born: 1891 London, England
Died: 1973 London, England
Other name/s: Cyril Joshua Ross , Cyril Miselevich, Cyril J Ross, Cyril Ross OBE ROI
Biography
Cyril Ross (né Miselevich) was born into a Lithuanian-Jewish family in Stepney, east London, England on 21 December 1891. A successful businessman and philanthropist, he was the owner of the West End furrier, Swears & Wells and, as Ben Uri's longstanding treasurer, provided secure storage in its vaults for the Ben Uri Collection during the Second World War. In 1945 the Hungarian émigré painter Kalman Kemeny was awarded, via a competition, a commission to execute portraits of the Ben Uri's two most prominent committee members: Cyril Ross and Mrs Ethel Solomon, both of whom, as an introduction to the catalogue of the exhibition Ben Uri Highlights: Key Works and Figures 1915-1990 records, ‘provided leadership during the difficult war years and the 1950s’. He also helped Ben Uri secure new premises within a Georgian townhouse at 14 Portman Street, London W1, which it occupied from early 1944 until 1959. Ross also offered support to the impecunious German-Jewish émigré artist and designer, Alfred Lomnitz (known as 'Lom'), who allegedly taught Ross how to paint (Schwab 1986, p. 5). Ross provided studio space for Lom in Swears & Wells' premises during the war and acquired many of the artist's works after his death, which he then presented to Ben Uri.
According to a caption accompanying a photograph from the Daily Telegraph Picture Library, dated October 1962, Ross learned to paint from 1934, disliking a portrait of his wife commissioned that year and of the opinion that he could do better himself. Ross subsequently achieved moderate success as a self-taught amateur artist, only beginning to paint in a traditional manner at the age of 40, often selling his works, including landscapes and still-lives, to raise funds for charitable causes. He held his first solo exhibition at the Cooling Galleries in London in 1938. The Jewish Chronicle noted that some of his pictures demonstrated ‘considerable technical proficiency, and, if one were not told otherwise, one would say that these are the work of a pupil of Sir William Rothenstein and the Royal College of Arts. […] His subject matter is mainly Jewish, and in several pictures be tries to convey the horror of the worst days of the Nazi persecution’ (S. 1938, p. 44). The following year he held an exhibition at the Brook Street Gallery. H.K. from the Jewish Chronicle, noted that Ross had not yet the ‘equipment’ to carry off complex work’, although ‘Thy Will be Done, a portrait of an Orthodox Jew with a map of Palestine in his hand and a portrait of Lord Balfour beside him has many qualities. There are passages of very nice colour, and although the head is not sufficiently felt in the round, the whole is pleasing’ (H.K. 1939, p. 37). During the war years, Ross also showed at the Royal Academy of Arts summer exhibition in 1940 and 1941 (in the latter, he exhibited The Promised Land, #247). An exhibition of Ross’ oils, entitled My People, opened at the Brook Street Gallery in 1945. The ambitious large-scale work, measuring 16 feet by 7 feet, contained portraits of some 900 men and women, many of them historical characters and others of more modern figures, either of Jewish birth or of mixed descent. Ross also held solo exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1945), Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris (1951), and at Ben Uri in 1947, 1965 and 1972 – the latter celebrating his 80th birthday, as well as participating in a number of group exhibitions. In 1947 he contributed the painting Nazi Sacrilege to the Ben Uri exhibition Subjects of Jewish Interest, the Jewish Chronicle noting that ‘One had much the same feeling of spiritual despair on looking at Cyril Ross’ Nazi Sacrilege’ – as one bad on witnessing Picasso's ‘Guernica’ for the first time; both were mighty efforts of single-minded devotion to a personal obsession both are somehow outside the scope of painting but transcend conventional treatment by the nobility of their themes’ (A.K.S. 1947, p. 21). Ross was a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the National Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers/Printmakers and in 1957 he participated in Artists of Chelsea, held at the renowned Chenil Galleries.
Ross was a prominent figure in Jewish philanthropic circles. He served as treasurer of both the Zangwill Fellowship and the Jewish National Fund and helped in many causes, including serving as President of the Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor for more than 30 years, keeping it running throughout the Second World War. In 1947 he was awarded the OBE for his services to Jewish charitable causes.
Cyril Ross died in London, England on 7 July 1973. Since his death, a document released by the National Archives Kew (KV2/3171) suggests that between 1940 and 1954, under the alias Rosenberg, Ross served as treasurer of the Committee for the Jewish Army in 1942, was associated in 1947 with the Irgun Zvei Leumi (the right-wing Jewish underground movement in Palestine, founded in 1931) and headed an intelligence network in Britain in 1950. His artwork is represented in the UK public domain in the Ben Uri Collection, which holds his portrait of Polish-born émigré artist and longstanding Ben Uri supporter, Alfred Wolmark, while Ben Uri archives document various aspects of his involvement with the institution over many years.
Related books
- ‘Record Show’, Jewish Chronicle, 21 January 1972, p. 21
- ‘Artists of Chelsea’, Jewish Chronicle, 24 May 1957, p. 25
- F.G.S., ‘The Summer Salon’, Jewish Chronicle, 19 August 1955, p. 8
- ‘Garden Party Aids Blind’, Jewish Chronicle, 1 July 1955, p. 17
- ‘National Society’, Jewish Chronicle, 11 March 1955, p. 36
- A.K.S., ‘Mr Cyril Ross’, Jewish Chronicle, 14 May 1954, p. 10
- M.C., ‘Mr. Cyril Ross’, Jewish Chronicle, 26 October 1951, p. 15
- Private Exhibition of Paintings Entitled ‘The Forgotten Ally’ by Cyril J. Ross, Portman Street (London: Ben Uri, 1947)
- A.K.S. ‘Art Notes’, Jewish Chronicle, 24 January 1947, p. 21
- ‘The Public's Attitude’, Jewish Chronicle, 11 October 1946, p. 7
- ‘Jewish Artists’ Exhibition’, Jewish Chronicle, 16 February 1945, p. 18
- ‘900 Portraits in One Picture’, Jewish Chronicle, 25 February 1944, p. 14
- ‘The Promised Land’, Jewish Chronicle, 16 May 1941, p. 13
- H. K., ‘‘Problem Pictures’ by Cyril Ross', Jewish Chronicle, 5 May 1939, p. 36
- S., ‘Cyril J. Ross’, Jewish Chronicle, 13 May 1938, p. 44
Related organisations
- Ben Uri Art Society (Treasurer)
- National Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers (member)
- Royal Institute of Oil Painters (member)
Related web links
- Art in exile, AJR information, April 1986, p. 5
- Ben Uri archive
- Ben Uri Collection, example of work by Alfred Lomnitz gifted by Cyril Ross
- Ben Uri Collection, portrait by Kalman Kemeny
- Cyril Ross, the fur coat spy, 2010
- Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Chronicle 1769-2018
Selected exhibitions
- 80th Birthday Retrospective Exhibition of Oil paintings by Cyril J. Ross, Ben Uri Gallery, London (1972)
- Ben Uri 50 Fiftieth Anniversary Special Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1966)
- Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Cyril Ross, Ben Uri Gallery (1965)
- Artists of Chelsea, Chenil Gallery (1957)
- National Society Exhibition, Royal Institute Galleries (1957)
- Royal Institute of Oil Painters (1955)
- Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1954)
- Royal Institute Galleries, London (1954)
- Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, London (1952)
- Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris (1951)
- Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Jewish Painters and Sculptors, Ben Uri Gallery (1950)
- Spring Exhibition: Paintings - Sculpture – Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1948)
- Spring Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1947)
- Private Exhibition of Paintings Entitled ‘The Forgotten Ally’ by Cyril J. Ross, Ben Uri Gallery (1947)
- Subjects of Jewish Interest: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Ben Uri Gallery (1946)
- Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1945)
- Paintings by Cyril Ross, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1945)
- Exhibition of the painting ‘My People’, Brook Street Gallery (1945)
- Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (1940, 1941)
- Solo exhibition, Brook Street Gallery, London (1939)
- Solo exhibition, Cooling Galleries, London (1938)
Ben Uri collection
Cyril Ross in the Ben Uri collection
Ben Uri archive
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Cyril Ross]