In episode 86 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews the esteemed scholar Susan Weininger on the surrealist sensation, GERTRUDE ABERCROMBIE!!!

Gertrude Abercrombie (1909–1977) was a formative contributor to mid-century American painting. Based in Chicago, Abercrombie was a surrealist painter and self-dubbed ‘queen of bohemia'.

Working independently from the Surrealist group in Europe, Abercrombie spent most of her life immersed in the Chicago jazz scene. With a penchant for cats, crescent and full moons, sinister desert-like landscapes that feature as paintings in bleak, cold interiors, stairs that lead to nowhere or a series of rhythmically coloured doors, Abercrombie forged a unique style, and presented her sometimes postage-stamp-sized paintings in flamboyant frames.

Painting some of the most innovative, surrealist, haunting, eerie, bizarre and brilliant, paintings I’ve ever seen – whether they be slightly larger landscapes with moons, cats, doors, or stairs to nowhere, or miniscule paintings of portraits, domestic scenes or still-lifes, or levitating bodies with limbs floating in the air – Abercrombie's works are utterly fascinating.

ENJOY!!!

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Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel

Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic

Research assistant: Viva Ruggi

Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner

Music by Ben Wetherfield

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