The son of architect Rudolf  Gross and Jeanette Kurzweil, Oskar Gross was born in Vienna on November 29, 1871.  He was educated at the Viennese Polytechnic Institute and at the Vienna Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.   At the age of 27, Gross successfully entered and won a competition to exhibit at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, where Chicago Architect Daniel Burnham "discovered" him.Gross came to Chicago in 1902 developing a successful practice as a muralist, portrait painter, illustrator and sculptor from his studio was at 19 East Pearson (the Beil Hermant Building).  Among his many important commissions are murals in Louis Sullivan's Owatonna Bank and a portrait of General Douglas MaCArther.He died in Chicago on August 19, 1963