Gertrude Abercrombie

We are grateful for the research conducted by Susan Weininger, Professor Emerita, Roosevelt University.

Provenance:
The Artist
Acquired directly from the Artist at the Hyde Park Art Exhibition, Chicago in 1956
Thence by decent to the present owner

The theme of levitation is part of a broader interest in magic within Gertrude Abercrombie’s mature oeuvre. Although there is a surreal quality to her work from the beginning of her career, the overt references to magic date from the 1950s on. The rectangular marble topped table which “magically” came into her possession is the site of magic and scenes of levitation in a number of her paintings. The artist depicted the theme of levitation several times, in works with a multiplicity of names. The earliest Levitation currently known dates to circa 1954, a composition called Levitation (location unknown). A subsequent reference to a painting called Hypnotist or Suspension (location unknown) from 1956 also probably treats this theme; and a painting called Levitation, 1967 (private collection) includes a top hatted male figure conjuring the levitating figure above the marble topped table noted above.

The Magician is a beautifully executed image of a woman floating above a more streamlined chaise than the Victorian couch that Abercrombie owned and incorporated into numerous paintings. There are at least two close counterparts to The Magician that depict the levitating figure above the Victorian chaise. Floating Lady, 1958 (private collection) is a work that includes elements familiar from other Abercrombie paintings: a small round marble topped table, a snail, and a letter on the floor, along with an interior baseboard. Untitled (Levitation), 1964 (private collection), includes a tiny cat peeking out from below the chaise yet seems to be set outdoors, as indicated by a cloud in the background and the absence of a baseboard.

Typical of Abercrombie, she used familiar elements from her repertoire and arranged them in a variety of ways. While each of the levitating, suspended, or floating figures in these images are connected to the artist’s attraction to magic, they are each a bit different. The Magician, situated in an austere interior with a bright green rug in front of the chaise and a black cat to its left, is like many of the artist’s paintings, deceptively straightforward. The fact that the cat, a frequent alter ego, is raising its paw as if to summon the levitation is a bit of typical Abercrombie-esque wit. It is as if she can invoke this magical act herself.

The painting is executed in a careful and precise manner, something the artist aspired to under the influence of her good friend, the painter John Wilde, beginning in the late 1940s. The composition is extraordinarily well balanced, with the black cushion of the chaise linking the vertical of her dark hair on the upper right and the black cat on the lower left. The horizontals of the figure, the chaise, the baseboard, and the bright green rug in the foreground further harmonize the piece. Seemingly simple, beautifully composed, and evoking magic in a setting that is as convincing and true to life as it is commonplace, shows Abercrombie at her best.