How Gertrude Abercrombie and her Magic Realist cohorts shifted the dial on American Regionalism

""I hope that through a ripple effect people will also gravitate towards the people who were [Abercrombie's] friends during her lifetime, and very much had the same sort of artistic intent," says the exhibition's curator, Thomas Busciglio-Ritter. "Exploring the world in a sort of strange, eerie, fantastical way, disturbing their viewers. They were all just a bunch of playful people, who were also thinking about their place as artists in society at that time, in very different ways.""

""As the surreal miniature paintings of the US artist Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-77) have drawn more art world interest, so have the wild parties she was said to have hosted regularly at her brownstone in Chicago's Hyde Park neighbourhood. Parties that earned the eccentric mid-20th-century artist nicknames such as the "Jazz Witch" and "Queen of Chicago". But who was on Abercrombie's guest list? As it turns out, other weird and wonderful artists.""

""The group exhibition of 17 works intentionally overlaps with the museum's turn to show the major Abercrombie travelling retrospective that began at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art earlier this year. The survey is now on view at the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine (until 11 January 2026), and will travel to the Norton Museum of Art in Florida after showing in Milwaukee in March. Gertrude and Friends is intended as a sort of companion to the survey show.""

A Milwaukee Art Museum exhibition, Gertrude and Friends: The Wisconsin Magic Realists, presents works by a tightknit group active in Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago from the early 1940s. The show of 17 works intentionally overlaps a major Gertrude Abercrombie travelling retrospective that began at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art and will travel to other museums after Milwaukee. The exhibited artists challenged dominant American Regionalism by depicting the Midwest in strange, eerie, and fantastical ways that stretched traditional Realism. The circle included ringleaders John Wilde and Karl Priebe and other playful artists considering their place in society.

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