Gertrude Abercrombie

Gertrude Abercrombie
Abercrombie in 1951
Born	(1909-02-17)February 17, 1909 Austin, Texas, United States
Died	April 3, 1977(1977-04-03) (aged 68) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Nationality	American
Education	University of Illinois Art Institute of Chicago
Known for	Painting

Gertrude Abercrombie (February 17, 1909 – July 3, 1977) was an American painter based in Chicago. Called "the queen of the bohemian artists", Abercrombie was involved in the Chicago jazz scene and was friends with musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vaughan, whose music inspired her own creative work.

Abercrombie was born on February 17, 1909, in Austin, Texas. Her parents, Tom and Lula Janes Abercrombie, were traveling opera singers who happened to be in Austin on the day of Gertrude's birth. The family lived in Berlin in 1913 to further her mother's career, but the beginning of World War I caused the family to move back to the United States. Upon their return the family lived in Aledo, Illinois, before settling in Hyde Park, Chicago in 1916. She was raised in a strict Christian Scientist environment at home.

She earned a degree in Romance languages from the University of Illinois in 1929. After studying figure drawing briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago, she took a year-long course in commercial art at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, leading to her first job drawing gloves for Mesirow Department Store advertisements. She also worked briefly as an artist for Sears.

In 1932 she began to focus strictly on her art. The following summer she made her first sale at an outdoor art fair in Chicago and received an honorable mention in the newspaper for the event. In the mid-1930s she moved out of her family's home and became active in the regional art scene. From 1934 to 1940 she served as a painter for the Works Progress Administration and in 1934 the Chicago Society of Artists held a solo show of her work. During the 1930s and 1940s she also began creating woodcuts.