Oliver Foss

French (1920-2002)

Born in Hanover, Germany in 1920, Oliver Foss studied at the Lycée Pasteur, Lycée Janson de Sailly, the École des Beaux-Arts under Paul Colin and Jean Dupas, and with George Bridgman at the Art Students League in New York. Following his studies, Foss traveled to New York City where he worked with Maria Annot and Ruth Jacoby, who organized his first one-man exhibition at the Riverside Museum. Foss also exhibited at the New School for Social Research, the 1964 World’s Fair, National Art Club and the Alma Reed Gallery, among others. Foss moved to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where he taught fine art at the University of Elizabethtown until 1949, when he returned to Paris and settled into an atelier in Villa des Ternes. In 1951, Foss had a one-man exhibition tour of the United States showing in New York City, Boston, Palm Beach and Philadelphia. In 1953, he had a career-changing exhibition at the Galerie Drouant-David on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris that drew wide praise and promoters for international exhibitions that led to one-man shows in Paris, New York, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.