“You could Google Gertrude Abercrombie, I suppose, or you could visit the Elmhurst Art Museum (elmhurstartmuseum.org) where many of her works — “I like to paint simple things that are a little strange,” she told a reporter when she was in her painting prime, which was the 1940s and 1950s — will be hanging on the walls through March 4.
As it always creatively does with its exhibitions, the Elmhurst Art Museum is embellishing the Abercrombie show with all manner of interesting programs. There will be a couple of jazz concerts and some talks by experts. On Feb. 17 the aforementioned Seaman will be there. Not sure what she might say, what insights she might provide. Art can by mysterious, one of its great joys, but she might offer this from her own book: “Abercrombie did not write about why she painted, or how she felt with a brush in her hand, or what she hoped people would glean from her work.”
What might you glean then from the title of her painting in the Art Institute, “Self-Portrait of My Sister,” when I tell you that Abercrombie was an only child?”
Read more from the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Kogan here.