Collier's Weekly: You'll Find a New Favorite Artist at Carnegie Museum of Art
Sean Collier, Pittsburgh Magazine, January 28, 2025
There are more than 80 paintings in the exhibit “Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery.” I looked at every one — most of them more than once. It’s a hypnotic, entrancing display that captivated me for hours.
It’s also a perfect example of how to present a single-artist exhibition that will please experts and novices alike. But we’ll get back to that subject.
On view through June 1 in the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Scaife Galleries, “The Whole World Is a Mystery” is a career-spanning look at the artist, who was born in Texas but is closely associated with her adopted hometown of Chicago. Abercrombie developed a singular visual language characterized by certain repeated images — dead trees, doors, cats, clouds — that make her work seem like an extended, symbolic conversation.