The Extraordinary Life (and Afterlife) of Art's 'Jazz Witch'

The artist Gertrude Abercrombie is not someone whose name I knew until very recently. But she’s definitely a name to know now.

Born in 1909 in Austin, Texas and dying in 1977 in Chicago, Abercrombie was a painter of witchy and surreal canvases. They seem like lucid dreams, full of haunted landscapes, lone women, masked figures, barren trees, forked paths, and mysterious towers.

In life, Abercrombie was a remarkable character. She was variously known as the “Queen of Chicago,” for her big presence in Hyde Park where she presided over a vibrant, self-curated social scene at a stately Victorian-era home; and as the “Jazz Witch,” for her enthusiastic support of Chicago jazz musicians in the 1940s and 50s—plus her personal affectation of wearing a peaked witch’s hat.

Abercrombie was long a pretty obscure figure. But in recent years, her art has seen a remarkable upsurge of interest, culminating in an exciting touring exhibition of her paintings titled “Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery" on view now at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.

We've run multiple stories on Abercrombie recently, one by Katie White recounting her life and art ("Meet Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie, the ‘Jazz Witch’ Who Captivated the Art World"), and one by Eileen Kinsella, tracking this once nearly forgotten artists’s recent return to the art market spotlight, nearly a half century after her death ("Once a ‘Regional Thing,’ Gertrude Abercrombie’s Enigmatic Art Is Selling for Huge Sums. Here’s Why"). In this episode, We talk to both of them, to get a full picture of this artist's life and legacy.