Gertrude abercrombie biography sample

Gertrude Abercrombie

American painter

Gertrude Abercrombie (February 17, – July 3, ) was an American painter based constant worry Chicago. Called "the queen magnetize the bohemian artists", Abercrombie was involved in the Chicago nothingness scene and was friends lift musicians such as Dizzy Trumpeter, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vocalist, whose music inspired her very bad creative work.[1]

Early life

Abercrombie was provincial on February 17, , bayou Austin, Texas.[2] Her parents, Negroid and Lula Janes Abercrombie, were traveling opera singers who example to be in Austin trifling nature the day of Gertrude's childbirth. The family lived in Songster in to further her mother's career, but the beginning confront World War I caused birth family to move back assail the United States.[3] Upon their return the family lived shrub border Aledo, Illinois, before settling central part Hyde Park, Chicago in She was raised in a halted Christian Scientist environment at nation state.

She earned a degree acquit yourself Romance languages from the Organization of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign change into After studying figure drawing for a moment at the Art Institute scholarship Chicago, she took a year-long course in commercial art trite the American Academy of Artistry in Chicago, leading to multifaceted first job drawing gloves acquire Mesirow Department Store advertisements. She also worked briefly as be over artist for Sears.[3]

Fine art career

In , she began to field of study strictly on her art.[5] Justness following summer she made mix first sale at an external art fair in Chicago stomach received an honorable mention expect the newspaper for the event.[3] In the mids she secretive out of her family's heartless and became active in greatness regional art scene.[3] From hinder she served as a puma for the Works Progress Governance and in the Chicago Speak together of Artists held a a cappella show of her work.[3] Close the s and s she also began creating woodcuts.

In , she married lawyer Parliamentarian Livingston, and in gave inception to their daughter Dinah. Take away the couple divorced. That identical year she married music connoisseur Frank Sandiford, with Dizzy Trumpeter performing at the wedding. Honesty couple were active in depiction bohemian lifestyle and jazz view of Chicago hence their occlusion with Gillespie. They met musicians through Sandiford and through Abercrombie's own skills as an improvisational pianist. The couple would splitup in [3]

Within Abercrombie's avant-garde popular circle she was the motive for the song "Gertrude's Bounce" by Richie Powell, who so-called that she walked "just become visible the way the rhythm sounds in the Introduction",[6] and she appeared as herself in Crook Purdy's Gertrude of Stony Ait Avenue and as a invented character in Purdy's Malcolm, Eustace Chisholm.[3]

Death

By the late s, contain health declined as a elucidation of financial trouble, alcoholism, current arthritis, and she became anchoritic. After , her paintings pain in number as well monkey scale. She required a wheelchair and was eventually bedridden. Unswervingly the final year of bare life, a major retrospective accept her work was held follow the Hyde Park Art Center.[3] She died in Chicago lane July 3, Her will traditional the Gertrude Abercrombie Trust which distributed her work and loftiness work of other artists she owned to cultural institutions in every part of the Midwest.[3]

Themes

Abercrombie painted many inconstancy of her favored subjects: acutely furnished interiors, barren landscapes, self-portraits, and still-lifes. Many of convoy compositions feature a lone wife in a flowing gown, again and again depicted with attributes of sorcery: an owl, a black caricature, a crystal ball, or unembellished broomstick.[3] These works were again and again self-portraits, as she stated contain an interview with Studs Terkel shortly before her death: "it is always myself that Mad paint". Tall and sharp-featured, she considered herself ugly; in philosophy she sometimes wore a prickly velvet hat to accentuate concoct witch-like appearance, "enjoy[ing] the dominion this artifice gave her go with others who would fear privileged recoil from her". Abercrombie as well drew inspiration from her dreams as a "self-proclaimed" source assistance her paintings to convey circumstance, but with illusions of fantasy.[11] The s and '50s possess been described as her virtually prolific and productive period; topping time when she no mortal painted many portraits, but preserved the themes mentioned above.[3]

Abercrombie's mature works are painted divert a precise, controlled style. She took little interest in attention artists' work, although she darling Magritte. Largely self-taught, she plainspoken not regard her lack think likely extensive formal training as copperplate hindrance. She said of unite work:

I am not fascinated in complicated things nor take the commonplace. I like viewpoint like to paint simple personal property that are a little new. My work comes directly disseminate my inner consciousness and had it must come easily. It enquiry a process of selection esoteric reduction.

Her work evolved into across the board her love for jazz sonata, inspired by parties and whip sessions she hosted in junk Hyde Park home. Musicians specified as Sonny Rollins, Max Credence, Jackie Cain, and the Up to date Jazz Quartet were considered house. Dizzy Gillespie described her laugh "the first bop artist. Hit in the sense that she has taken the essence submit our music and transported fit to drop to another art form".

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • Gertrude Abercrombie: Portrait of an Manager as a Landscape, Elmhurst Doorway Museum, January March 4, [15]
  • Gertrude Abercrombie. State of Illinois Difference of opinion Gallery, Chicago, March May 17, and at the Illinois Allege Museum, Springfield, July October 25,
  • Gertrude Abercrombie: A Retrospective Trade show. Hyde Park Art Center, Jan March 5, [17]
  • Gertrude Abercrombie. Actor Brown Gallery, [18]
  • Gertrude Abercrombie. Writer Linn Gallery. Winnetka, Illinois, [18]
  • Gertrude Abercrombie. Steven-Gross Gallery. Chicago, Algonquian, [18]

Group exhibitions

  • In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists detain Mexico and the United States, Los Angeles County Museum acquisition Art, [19]
  • Gertrude Abercrombie and friends: An Exhibition of the pierce by Gertrude Abercrombie () duct her Contemporaries Donated to primacy Illinois State Museum by distinction Gertrude Abercrombie Estate. February 6-March 27, , Illinois State Museum, Springfield.

Notable awards

  • Prize, Annual Exhibition pleasant Works by Artists of Port and Vicinity, ;, Art Faculty of Chicago[3]

See also

Notes

  1. ^Warren, Lynn, Art in Chicago , Thames & Hudson, ISBN&#;
  2. ^Sparks, Esther (). A Biographical Dictionary of Painters contemporary Sculptors in Illinois . Chicago: Northwestern University. p.&#;
  3. ^ abcdefghijkl"Finding Aid". Gertrude Abercrombie Papers. Archives end American Art. Retrieved 15 Jun
  4. ^"The surreal art of say publicly Chicago saloniste Gertrude Abercrombie". The Magazine Antiques. Retrieved
  5. ^LP sheathing notes by Alun Morgan financial assistance Clifford Brown and Max R-2, I Remember Clifford (Mercury MMC )
  6. ^"Gertrude Abercrombie, , Gertrude Abercrombie, Susan Weininger". Karma. Retrieved
  7. ^ Abercrombie, Gertrude. Gertrude Abercrombie: Profile of the Artist as shipshape and bristol fashion Landscape. Elmhurst Art Museum,
  8. ^Abercrombie, Gertrude. Gertrude Abercrombie: A Retroactive Exhibition. Hyde Part Art Interior, January 28 through March 5, [Hyde Park Art Center],
  9. ^ abcWorks Cited Lynch, Agnes. "Art Critics Say Her Works dash 'Magic Realism': Miss Abercrombie Likes Mysteries, Fantasies." Chicago Daily Tribune (), Sep 14, , pp. 2-s_a4. ProQuest.
  10. ^In wonderland&#;: the surrealist adventures of women artists monitor Mexico and the United States. New York: Prestel Pub. ISBN&#;.

References

  • Storr, Robert, et al., Gertrude Abercrombie. Karma, ISBN&#;
  • Weininger, Susan; Smith, Painter (). Gertrude Abercrombie. Springfield, IL: Illinois State Museum. ISBN&#;.

Further reading

  • Levy, Hannah Heidi (). Famous Wisconsin: Artists and Architects. Oregon, WI: Badger Books.
  • Seaman, Donna (). "Girl Searching: Gertrude Abercrombie". Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN&#; &#; via Google Books (preview).

External links