COTTAGE GROVE, OR — A new solo exhibition by Eugene artist, writer, and educator Jerry Ross

has opened at Jack Sprats Restaurant in Cottage Grove and will run for six weeks through Tuesday,

June 29.

The exhibit features a selection of recent paintings and studies presented as a special “preview

exhibition” leading into Ross’s major retrospective opening June 24 and continuing through July 27 at

the Gordon Hotel in downtown Eugene.

Ross describes his style as “American Verismo,” a contemporary approach to painting inspired by the

Italian verismo tradition and especially by the 19th-century Tuscan painters known as the I

Macchiaioli. His work begins with strong arrangements of light and shadow that evolve into expressive

structures of simplified masses, atmospheric passages, dynamic edges, and calligraphic brushwork.

The paintings in the Jack Sprats exhibit include landscapes, portraits, and figurative works that reflect

Ross’s long engagement with both direct observation and expressive abstraction. Many of the works

explore everyday human experience while also responding to broader social and political realities.

The Cottage Grove exhibit offers visitors an early opportunity to encounter the ideas and visual

language that will be expanded upon in the larger Gordon Hotel retrospective later this summer.

Ross, founder of the American Verismo movement and Club Macchia, has exhibited internationally in

Italy, the Netherlands, and throughout the United States. His paintings are known for their bold tonal

structure, painterly immediacy, and fusion of realism with expressive modernist reduction.

Exhibition Information

Jack Sprats Restaurant

Cottage Grove, Oregon

Now showing through Tuesday, June 29

Upcoming Retrospective

Jerry Ross Retrospective

Gordon Hotel

Eugene, Oregon

June 24 – July 27, 2026

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