Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery
Auteur(s) : Collectif
Exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 18 January - 1 June 2025;
at the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, 12 July 2025 - 11 January 2026;
and at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, 27 March - 19 July 2026
A key figure in Chicago's mid-century art and jazz scene, Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977) produced enigmatic paintings full of personal meaning. With a deft hand, a concise symbolic vocabulary and a restrained palette, she created powerful images that speak to her mercurial nature and evolving psychology as an artist. Cats, owls, doors, moons, barren trees, shells and female figures in search of meaning converge in her mysterious works, which suggest a life of wilful introspection and emotional struggle.
This book, which is both a monograph and a catalogue for the first exhibition devoted to Gertrude Abercrombie since 1991, offers a rare opportunity to gain an in-depth appreciation of the artist's highly personal language. It sheds light on the way in which she has drawn on surrealist approaches and magic realism to probe deeply into the nature of things.
