Chicagoan Gertrude Abercrombie painted deeply personal works, using objects, motifs, and references knowable only to herself and her social and artistic circle. The Past and the Present depicts a spare interior, whose somber tones are partially relieved by the bright blues and greens of the furniture covering, pillow, and lampshade. It is a vision of her first apartment in Hyde Park on the city’s South Side. Although the room is precisely rendered, as if painted from direct observation, Abercrombie no longer lived there. When she made this work, she was living in the Chicago rowhouse portrayed in the painting on the back wall. Abercrombie thus collapsed time, ruminating on her past and investing it with a vivid and strange realism.
“Artists of Chicago Open 50th Local Annual––Split $3,475 Purse,” The Art Digest 20, 14 (1946) 8 (ill.).
Katherine Kuh, “A Golden Anniversary for Chicago Art,” Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin 40, 4 (1947) 41 (ill.).
Frank Holland, “Gertrude Abercrombie Wins New Art Laurels,” Chicago Sun–Times, November 21, 1948.
Frank Sandiford, “About Gertrude,” Chicago Photographic 3 (Summer 1950) ill.
Judith A. Barter, ed. America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2016), fig. 20, 109.
New York, Asociated American Artist Galleries, First Exhibition––Paintings, Gertrude Abercrombie, Jan. 24–Feb. 6, 1946.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Fiftieth Annual Exhibition of Works by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, Mar. 28–May 12, 1946, cat. 3.
Chicago Public Library, Art Room, Nov. 1948.
Winnetka, Illinois, Leonard Linn Gallery, Feb. 1952.
Chicago, Stevens–Gross Galleries, Gertrude Abercrombie: Paintings, Mar. 7–Apr. 4, 1952.
Massachusetts, Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Twelfth Annual Spring Purchase Exhibition, Apr. 20–May 25, 1952, cat. 11.
Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, Gertrude Abercrombie, Nov. 4, 1956.
Springfield, Illinois State Museum, Painters and Sculptors in Illinois 1820–1945, Oct. 30–Dec. 12, 1971, cat. 63; Champaign, Illinois, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Feb. 6–27, 1972; Peoria, Illinois, Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Mar. 10–Apr. 16; Chicago Historical Society, Apr. 26–June 24, 1972.
Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, Gertrude Abercrombie: A Retrospective Exhibition, Jan. 28–Mar. 5, 1977, cat. 40 (frontispiece).
New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Art Gallery, Realism and Realities: the Other Side of American Painting 1940–1960, Jan. 17–Mar. 26, 1982, cat. 2; Alabama, Montogmery Museum of Fine Arts, Apr. 15–June 13; College Park, Art Gallery, University of Maryland, Sept. 7–Oct. 18.
Springfield, Illinois State Museum, Gertrude Abercrombie, July 28– Oct. 25, 1991; Chicago, State of Illinois Art Gallery, Mar. 18–May 17, 1991.
Madison, Wisconsin, Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, With Friends: Six Magic Realists, 1940–1965, June 18–Sept. 18, 2005, cat. 12
Gertrude Abercrombie (1909–1977), Chicago, c. 1945; Gertrude Abercrombie Trust, Chicago, 1977; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1978.
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