The Extraordinary Life (and Afterlife) of Art's 'Jazz Witch'
The artist Gertrude Abercrombie is not someone whose name I knew until very recently. But she’s definitely a name to know now.
Born in 1909 in Austin, Texas and dying in 1977 in Chicago, Abercrombie was a painter of witchy and surreal canvases. They seem like lucid dreams, full of haunted landscapes, lone women, masked figures, barren trees, forked paths, and mysterious towers.
In life, Abercrombie was a remarkable character. She was variously known as the “Queen of Chicago,” for her big presence in Hyde Park where she presided over a vibrant, self-curated social scene at a stately…
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