Ross was a renowned Ghanaian arts scholar who spent 20 years at the Fowler Museum at UCLA managing or curating nearly 40 African and African-American exhibitions shown at 30 venues across the country.
[2] His first major exhibition at the Fowler (then the UCLA Museum of Cultural History) was The Arts of Ghana (1977), co-curated with Herbert M. Cole, which was accompanied by a comprehensive publication he co-authored.
Ross was largely responsible for setting the standard for the Fowler's highly researched, contextualized, and multi-media exhibitions of global arts, always paired with a scholarly volume, a paradigm that continues to this day.
For example, he spearheaded the Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou project (1995), co-curated by Donald J. Cosentino and Marilyn Houlberg, which has since become one of the Fowler's most memorable exhibitions and publications.
Ross curated the community-based project, Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African-American Identity (1991), an initiative that involved a year-long African art and field collecting course he co-taught with the Fowler's Director of Education Betsy Quick at Crenshaw High School.
His years at the Fowler were also a time when the museum's national reputation as an innovator in exhibition development, engagement with community advisors, and the production of multi-author publications was established with authority.
Many Fowler projects were funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and it was Ross who set the stage for the museum's long and successful record of receiving major grants from this federal agency.
Inspired by his gratitude for his mentor and friend Skip Cole, Ross went out of his way throughout his career to assist and advise students, and to help them publish their research.
Beyond Ross's direct responsibilities associated with UCLA and Fowler projects, he was extremely committed to helping institutions and individuals in Africa.