Clare Camille Romano, painter and printmaker, was born in Palisades, New Jersey in February of 1922 and grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She studied painting at Cooper Union where she met John Ross whom she married in 1943. She also studied at the École des Beaux Arts, Fontainebleau, France and she later worked for Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer. In 1949, she learned printing at the Robert Blackburn Studio in New York. Romano was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant in 1952 and a Fulbright Grant in 1958.

Romano and Ross were pioneers of the collagraph technique of printmaking, in which materials are collaged onto a printing plate with glue. The couple collaborated on writing The Complete Printmaker, a definite textbook published in 1972. They also co-authored The Complete Collagraph in 1980.

Both were teachers, Romano taught at the Art Center of Northern New Jersey from 1960 and 1965, New School University in New York City from 1960 to 1973, Pratt Graphics Center from 1963 to 1987, and Pratt Institute from 1964 to 1991.

Romano was a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists and served as president from 1970 to 1972, the Print Club of Philadelphia, and the Boston Printmakers. Her works are represented in the Queensland Museum of Art, Brisbane, Australia; the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; the Cincinnati Museum of Art, Ohio; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, France; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; and the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Clare Romano Ross died on January 25, 2017, in Riverdale, New York.