Gertrude Abercrombie
Karma, a gallery/publisher on the Lower East Side in New York, presented a major exhibition of Gertrude Abercrombie from August 9 through September 23, 2018. Abercrombie, although well known among artists and collectors in Chicago, is largely unknown outside of that relatively small sphere. The reasons for her anonymity are, no doubt, a combination of factors, some unfair – but overly familiar to women artists everywhere – and some coincidental – Abercrombie’s most productive years, which proceeded the first Imagist wave, The Monster Roster, were a time when Chicago offered little in the way of a supportive visual artist community. Any way you look at it, however, Abercrombie’s work makes the case that such anonymity is undeserved. What follows is a review I wrote of Gertrude Abercrombie’s work that was originally published in the New Art Examiner, June/Summer Issue, 1991. Because the original NAE closed pre-Internet, this review has been previously unavailable to read online.
New Art Examiner 1991 review of Gertrude Abercrombie at the State of Illinois Gallery
Gertrude Abercrombie died in 1977, which was also the last time her work was seen in a major retrospective, courtesy of the Hyde Park Art Center. It is now 14 years later and, in the ensuing decade and a half, many women artists have finally begun to receive, in small measure, some long overdue attention. This is especially true for great women artists who were outspoken in their time, such as Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel, Louise Bourgeois, and, as this current exhibition of nearly 150 paintings and artifacts postulates, perhaps Gertrude Abercrombie.
It cannot be denied that Abercrombie, whose works span more than four decades, exhibited a remarkable degree of talent in an assortment of media. She had a degree from the University of Illinois in romance languages (it is said that her professors urged her to be a writer), played jazz piano and sang scat, and developed considerable abilities for an essentially self-taught painter. This creative dexterity, coupled with her unique personality, had a great effect – both positive and negative – on her place and role in the Chicago art scene.
Known as the “Queen of Chicago” by her friends during her salad days in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Abercrombie hosted a weekly salon for years with some of the most important writers, artists, and especially musicians living in or visiting Chicago. And let’s face it, if you were living in Chicago in the years following World War II, and you wanted to be in the company of true creative genius, music was where it was at. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Max Roach all made regular appearances at Abercrobie’s. One of the Abercrombie’s better paintings is Design for Death (Charlie Parker’s Favorite Paintings), 1946.
Gertrude Abercrombie
Design for Death (Charlie Parker’s Favorite Painting), 1946
Oil on Masonite
17 15/16 x 21 15/16 inches
Yet one has to wonder if this ambivalent view toward a personal hierarchy of artistic media may, in part, have been responsible for Abercrombie’s odd relationship to painting. Throughout her career, she paid little specific attention to the visual arts community and even less to the development of technique. Had Abercrombie synthesized aspects of jazz improvisation into her work, this might have been an acceptable situation; however she did not. In fact, a great deal of her production suffers from being stiff or awkward. This is most apparent when comparing the paintings that exist in both a large and small version, for without fail the smaller versions are superior. For instance, looking at Witches Switches and Four Switches (both dated 1952 and, despite the titles, nearly identical paintings), one notes that the 18” x 24” Witches Switches
Gertrude Abercrombie
Four Switches, 1952
Oil on Masonite
4 x 6 inches
displays what could at best be described as an indifferent paint application in the background areas, as if she were just “filling in.” By contrast, the 4” x 6” Four Switches has the clarity and specificity of some lost or forgotten Tarot card, its meaning locked in with each careful stroke. As one views the overall body of work, it becomes apparent that Abercrombie needed to stay in touch with the generating thought or emotion. The more ambitious the technical and scale requirements, it seems, the further Abercrombie got from the original inspiration – culminating, ultimately, in weaker paintings.
Gertrude Abercrombie
Witches Switches, 1952
Oil on Masonite
18 x 24 inches
Even more unfortunate than the weakness of many of the larger paintings is a kind of conceptual numbness that permeates much of the late work. Abercrombie seems to have lacked any interest in pushing her art toward a more universal or historical resolution, satisfied in most cases to leave it in an essentially diaristic state. Thus, with the exception of some smaller versions, her repetition of an image, even her own self-representation, leads not to greater understanding but to a kind of cold remove. Throughout her career, Abercrombie’s needs to express archetype too often became lost in logotype.
Still, it cannot be denied that Abercrombie did produce quite a number of paintings that contain a high order of formal inventiveness and offer an intuitive, exquisite kind of beauty. Design for Death (Charlie Parker’s Favorite Painting, 1946, Four Switches, 1952, Doors (3-Demolitions), 1957,
Gertrude Abercrombie
Doors (3-Demolitions), 1957
Oil on Masonite
Two Ladders, 1947,
Gertrude Abercrombie
Two Ladders, 1947
Oil on Masonite
12 × 16 inches
Young Mother #2, 1942, Interior, 1938, and a number of the self-portraits are arguably on par with Kahlo or Magritte (with whom she shares the closest affinity). It cannot be denied that Abercrombie’s best works venture deeply into a personal vision, a vision that resonates with a full complement of fear, hope, and desire.
The State of Illinois Gallery and co-curators Susan Weininger and Kent Smith, the organizers of the exhibition, were correct in including works that provided such a large overview, even those of questionable quality. From Abercrombie’s perspective, and I’m sure she would agree, it is more important to appreciate her life than her art – after all, hers was a life much bigger than her art.
In the end, one might ask in regard to Abercrombie: How many great paintings must an artist complete to be recognized as having made an important contribution? Thirty? Twenty? Five? It seems to me, and I think history bears this out, that one or two exceptional works are enough to warrant lasting attention. By any fair measure, Abercrombie does.
Deven Golden, 1991
