Earl Clifford Gross was born on September 11, 1899 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and studied at Westminster College and Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon University.) He moved to Chicago in 1919 and resided here almost 60 years. He exhibited at the Macbeth Galleries in 1941 and in 1946 had an exhibition in New York at AAA.  He taught at the Chhicago Academy of Fine Arts and later in Cincinatti, New Orleans and Atlanta.  He later lived in Evanston and Glencoe, Illinois.

His art has been displayed in the Pentagon and at the Air Force Academy as well as in the Art Institute and many museums around the country.  He helped establish the commercial art studio of Stevens, Gross, Sundblom & Staltz, later known as Stevens-Gross Inc., Chicago.

Earl Gross died in Albuquerque, New Mexico on March 2, 1993.