Biography
Sherry L. Ross
"I grew up in a home where writing and art was a daily process. My younger sister Rochelle and I were encouraged to read, write and draw from an early age."
Sherry's father, Leon Lazarus, returned from WWII Italy and began working for Stan Lee in the Golden Days of comics, writing over 800 comic stories in his early career. He also wrote several Golden Books for children. Sherry's mother, Marjorie Olson, published 40 or more romance stories in magazines and studied at the Chicago Art Institute, becoming an art director. Her uncles Sidney and Harry Lazarus were artists and illustrators, also beginning in comics. "Writing and art was a natural and daily event for us."
Ms. Ross's training in early adulthood included two years at the iconic Art Students League on West 57th Street in New York City. In the 1980s, she took three workshops with the beloved poet David Ignatow at the 92nd Street Y in NYC. "He taught me that each poem must have a core purpose, a theme — and its metaphor should support that theme."
In 2000, her husband Fred Ross founded The Art Renewal Center (artrenewal.org), an art educational nonprofit that champions art in the Realist Tradition. Sherry served as Editor-in-Chief in its early years. ARC now hosts thousands of images, art scholarships, and the largest art competition in the world for Realist art — culminating annually at Sotheby's New York.
Ms. Ross now lives with Fred an hour outside of New York City, surrounded by forest and nature, close to their daughter Kara Lysandra Ross (CEO of ARC), son-in-law Sean Colón, and their fraternal twin granddaughters, Anna and Kayleigh.
