Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery

Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery

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This meticulously curated retrospective offers an in-depth exploration of Gertrude Abercrombie, the esteemed yet under-recognized Chicago Surrealist, celebrated as the “queen of the bohemian artists.” It provides valuable insight into her influential body of work and artistic legacy.

This authoritative scholarly volume examines Chicago artist Gertrude Abercrombie, a pivotal figure in the mid-20th-century Chicago art and jazz communities. From the 1930s until her passing in 1977, Abercrombie created enigmatic paintings marked by a distinctive vision, employing a precise symbolic language and a muted palette. Her works—featuring motifs such as cats, owls, doors, moons, barren trees, seashells, and introspective female figures—reflect a life of deliberate self-examination and emotional complexity. Rooted in her dream imagery, Abercrombie’s art embodies her belief that “the whole world is a mystery.”

Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery accompanies the artist’s first retrospective since 1991: an eponymous exhibition which begins at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh before traveling to the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Gertrude Abercrombie was born in Austin, TX, and settled in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. She was the subject of a two-person exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1944 and had a retrospective of her work at the Hyde Park Art Center shortly before her death in 1977. Her work is in the collections of Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among other institutions. Eric Crosby is the director of the Carnegie Museum of Art. Cynthia Stucki is a curator at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Sarah Humphreville is a curator at the Colby College Museum of Art. John Corbett is a writer and curator based in Chicago, where he is co-owner of Corbett vs. Dempsey art gallery. Katie Anania is a professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Donna Cassidy is professor emerita at the University of Southern Maine.

Materials: Hardcover

Size: 12 in H x 9.5 in W

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