Bettina Grossman

Grossman was born in Brooklyn, to Saul and Pauline Grossman on 28 September 1927. She had three siblings. The family lived in Borough Park and observed Orthodox Judaism.[2]

Grossman studied commercial art in high school and worked as a textile designer, making enough money to move to Europe and pursue art during the 1950s and 1960s.[2] After struggling to make ends meet overseas, she moved back to New York City and settled into Manhattan's historic Hotel Chelsea, a haven for artists, musicians, and cultural icons. She lived in room 503, which doubled as her living quarters and art studio.[3] Her apartment became overloaded with years of accumulated art and materials, so she resorted to sleeping in a lawn chair in the hallway.[2]

Despite her decades long career, Grossman finally began to experience notoriety for her work during her later years. She was the subject of a 2012 documentary film, Girl With Black Balloons, directed by Corinne van der Borch.[4]

Grossman died from respiratory failure on 2 November 2021 at the age of 94 at a care centre in Brooklyn.[2]

Grossman’s oeuvre consists of drawings, sculpture, and photographs. A studio fire in the late 1960s destroyed much of her work, and prompted a shift in aesthetic style and ideology.[5] An example includes the photographic series Phenomenology Project (1979–80), featuring distorted views of New York City seen from window reflections.[1] Yto Barrada, a Moroccan-French artist who exhibited with Grossman, is working on a catalogue raisonné of her work.[6]

In 2019, Barrada and Grossman collaborated on a project that explored concepts of ecological devastation. The exhibition, titled The Power of Two Suns, was on view at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Arts Center at Governors Island.[7] Prior to her death, Grossman was one of 47 contemporary artists featured in the 2021 iteration of Greater New York, MoMA PS.1’s annual survey of New York-based artists. At the age of 94, she was the oldest artist in the exhibition.[8]