Contributed by David Carrier / Gertrude Abercrombie (1909–1977) was a Chicago-based painter. Basically self-taught, she was inspired by Rene Magritte or perhaps Paul Delvaux to create small, highly distinctive Surrealist paintings. She was a great friend of jazz musicians and much written about by Chicago writers. She had real success in the local art market. Though gone for almost 50 years now, she has recently gained wider attention. In a deft exercise in revisionist taste, Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art has mounted a substantial and intriguing display of her work.
Tag: Surrealism
Call it Orphism
Contributed by Adam Simon / At a Four Walls event in Brooklyn in the early 1990s, Erik Oppenheim, at that time a young artist, stood up and said, “I’m starting an art movement. Anyone who wants to join, meet me in the back after the show.” It was a hilarious and audacious gesture, in part because no one joins an art movement on a whim, like a list-serve or an exercise class, but also because there hadn’t been any artist-initiated movements for a very long time. They proliferated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century with the advent of Impressionism, Surrealism, Futurism, and Dada, and enjoyed something of a resurgence in the 1960s with Fluxus in the United States, Supports/Surfaces and Zero in Europe, and the Gutai Group in Japan. Most of what we consider movements were proclaimed by an outside observer, usually a critic or curator, looking to group artists who had similar concerns and made work that fit the designation. For the artists themselves to rally around a specific cause, even an aesthetic one, was not required.
Sly and witty: Female Surrealists in Los Angeles
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Past surveys of Surrealism have either largely excluded female artists or minimized their contributions, so the exhibition of lady Surrealists at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that runs through May 6, 2012, is a big deal.
Who is Kay Sage?
Contributed by Sharon Butler / A few years ago I was at the Mattatuck Museum checking out the Connecticut Biennial, and I ran across a […]