Chicago Art + Design

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

Provenance:

The Artist

John Beck, Chicago, acquired from the Artist

Shirley Mann, Chicago

Thence by descent to the present owners

Lot note:

Snail (J. B.), painted in 1964, was originally owned by John Beck, a good friend of Gertrude Abercrombie, and is undoubtedly the J. B. referred to on the pennant flag next to the shell in the present painting. The artist began doing tiny paintings such as this one, often mounted as pins or brooches (or intended for that purpose), to sell at art fairs in the early 1950s. She began to produce these miniature paintings to increase her income after her marriage to Bob Livingston dissolved and she married Frank Sandiford, a much less reliable provider. These small paintings sold very well and became a consistent form of income, and the artist continued to make these diminutive paintings into the late 1960s. 

Shells became a very important subject in Abercrombie’s work beginning in the early 1950s. Many of these small paintings depict shells of different shapes as their subject, with variations in detail, typical of Abercrombie. The shell in Snail (J.B.) is certainly one she owned and used as a frequent model. With its distinctive tiny, almost circular crack in the lower left area, it is seen in numerous iterations. Many of these small shell paintings were made for and given as present to people with whom Abercrombie was close, including for artist friends Karl Priebe, Jerry Karidis and Frances Strain Biesel; family members such as her cousin Maurine Campbell; musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie; and friends Hugh Cameron, Bill O’Nan, and Esther Wilcox. This indicates that these were frequently made as special gifts, often inscribed or identified with the recipients’ initials in pennant flags such as the one seen in the present painting.

The shell was a significant subject for Abercrombie, who was drawn to interior spaces from an early point in her career. She painted the austere interior of her first apartment in the Weinstein Building in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago as an impenetrable, inescapable space, which corresponds to her own feelings of entrapment, insecurity and loneliness. The shell is another kind of room, a simple space from which there is no escape, echoing the constructed spaces she so often painted. 

Even in seemingly simple images like Snail (J.B.), the artist modified her compositions so that each is unique. One of the ways she distinguished the small paintings of single shells was by varying the backgrounds, colors, and size relationship between the setting and shell. In this painting, the inner part of the shell is Abercrombie’s hallmark turquoise blue, which is echoed in the background, while the rest of the shell is pink fading to gray. The flag is curved to resonate with the curvature of the shell below it. Even in a tiny work such as this, the artist takes care to create shadows that indicate a consistent light source, demonstrating her care in crafting a carefully balanced and believable composition. The combination of a personal, enigmatic subject and precise craftsmanship amplifies the characteristic mystery and enchantment of her work.