The Artistic Journey of Clifford Ross
Clifford Ross is an American artist whose diverse practice spans sculpture, painting, photography, and video. Born in New York City, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Art History from Yale University in 1974 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1973. His early work in painting and sculpture was entirely abstract between 1974 and 1979. By 1987, his paintings were tied to landscape imagery with physical materiality and abstraction. In 1995, he began his photographic work, which led to the creation of the Hurricane series starting in 1996.
Ross's technical innovations include the invention of the R1 camera in 2002 to photograph Mount Sopris in Colorado, and the design of the R2 360 degree video camera and the i3 Digital Cyclorama. His work is featured in several major collections, including:
- The Museum of Modern Art
- The J. Paul Getty Museum
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- The Whitney Museum of American Art
- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- The Philadelphia Museum of Art
Series and Notable Works
Ross's photographic output includes the Hurricane series, which captures large-scale ocean waves, and the Horizon and Grain series, which together form the Wave Music trilogy. His Mountain series utilizes high-resolution photography of Mount Sopris. Other significant projects include Mountain Redux, Harmonium Mountain I, and the Digital Waves series, which uses computer-generated media for display on LED walls.
His large-scale commissions and installations include:
- The Austin Wall: A 28' x 28' stained glass wall for the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Austin, Texas
- Wood Prints: Photographs printed on wood veneer, such as Sopris Wall I
