In his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, Bernard Cassell Goss was described as a “freelance portrait artist.” Many of his sitters were noted Black intellectuals and may have been painted from photographs. Goss, who worked with oil and masonite, frequently portrayed figures playing music.
Goss was born in Sedalia, Missouri, and attended the University of Iowa for four years. Following his graduation in 1935, he moved to Chicago. During the next two years, he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) with classmates George Neal and Charles Sebree, other Black artists looking for an art education during a time when most art schools did not admit Black students. Goss worked in the easel division of the Illinois Art Project, one of the largest “sub-projects” of the Federal Art Project, a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Operating between 1935 and 1943, the Illinois Project ultimately employed 775 artists and administrators.
Goss was also involved in the National Landmark institution, the Southside Community Art Center (SSCAC). In 1939, Goss married fellow artist Margaret Burroughs, and the very next year, she led the charge on establishing this art center to exhibit Black artists and provide a platform for teaching. Goss helped establish the center, exhibited, and continued teaching lessons there along with other notable artists and SAIC classmates such as Elizabeth Catlett, Charles Sebree, George Neal, Richmond Barthé, Wadsworth Jarrell, and Jeff Donaldson. One of over 100 WPA-funded community art centers established in the United States, the SSCAC is the only center that remains open today. In 1942, he enlisted in the United States military, and on his draft card, he listed his employment as “WPA.” At the time of his discharge, he had attained the rank of private.
Though Goss did not experience the same fame as a few of his contemporaries, he was just as involved in the Black Chicago Renaissance. One of Goss’s most popular paintings was Counter Point, which was included in the Atlanta University Art Annual, a yearly exhibition program begun by Hale Woodruff in 1942 to provide Black artists with an exhibition venue. This painting depicts two women, a dancer and an accompanist. When this was painted in 1954, the United States began desegregating schools; by depicting a Black musician accompanying a White dancer, perhaps Goss was showing the hopeful future of racial solidarity.