Now a new touring exhibition invites viewers to meet the artist fully for the first time.
I make a run at make it real, she said of her work.
I often find my paintings more real than the world around me.
Gertrude Abercrombie,Where or When (Things Past), 1948, Collection of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin, Gift of the Gertrude Abercrombie Trust
She also found the fantastic in the real.
Each is a kind of tone poem expressing a different emotion, Crosby notes.
But what he finds particularly fascinating is beyond the frame of her paintings.
Gertrude Abercrombie,Strange Shadows (Shadow and Substance),1950; Private collection, Illinois
You get a sense from her work and life that she is in it for the fullness.
Im very inspired by her life just as much as her paintings.
Abercrombie latterly admitted to being influenced by Rene Magritte, cheekily calling him her spiritual daddy.
Gertrude Abercrombie,Split Personality,1954; Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Art Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2010.21
Gertrude Abercrombie,Demolition Doors,1964; Illinois State Museum Purchase
Gertrude Abercrombie,Doors, 4 and Cats,1956; Private collection
Gertrude Abercrombie withThere on the Table(1935), Gertrude Abercrombie paper, circa 1880-1986, bulk 1935-1977, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Gertrude Abercrombie,Shell and Drape,1952; Private collection
Gertrude Abercrombie,Moored to the Moon,1963; Private collection, New York
Gertrude Abercrombie,Two Ladders,1947; Illinois State Museum purchase
