Personal Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Gertrude Abercrombie
American; 20th-century
Normal, IL: University Galleries of Illinois State University
57%
The Magician. 1964. Oil on canvas
There's little in the way of painterly accomplishment to recommend this work, leaving only its symbolism, which is meagre too. Abercrombie's flat color-combinations give her paintings a sort of duskiness that girds their surrealism, but the lacteous haze defining her expanses of empty space seems a result of indecision or ambivalence rather than deliberation; it is improperly integrated with the painting’s narrative aims. However, the rhythm of horizontal and vertical forms on/around the table is worthy of note (V/V/H/H/V: owl/girl/cat/hat/pitcher) and the echo between the human figure behind the counter and the little microphone-thing before it creates a slight off-kilter dynamism that's aesthetically profitable. But none of this — nor the oddness of the scientistic arrangement of things on the table — is quite enough to make up for how bland Abercrombie's handling of paint is. This painting's surface seems unjustifiably flat. (2024)
Normal, IL: University Galleries of Illinois State University
51%
Interior. 1938. Oil on panel
I'm not certain what's supposed to be wondered about this painting. It's an anonymous room (the milky grey of the walls contributes to that) and the window is curiously unglazed, but otherwise the scene is rather scant w/r/t surrealistic elements. The one profitable compositional thing is the downward diagonal point of the tablecloth, responded to by the broom's opposite lean and lent a coy attitude by the way it cuts against the perspectival orderliness of the floorboards. These features (the receding V implied by the tablecloth/broom-system, the intersecting V of implied raking light on the wall and floor) go partway towards creating some spatial intrigue, but fail to salvage the predominant emptiness of the picture, which especially to the right feels hollowed out rather than pregnant. The application of paint is a bit arbitrary. (2024)