Modern and Contemporary Art

The Fisherman, an image of a man reeling in a large fish from the banks of a body of water, is an unusual subject in Gertrude Abercrombie’s oeuvre. Created relatively early in her career, it was exhibited in the 53rd Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture (no. 49) at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1942, and again in 1943, at another gallery (illegibly) listed in the artist’s records, making it clear that Abercrombie thought this was a valuable work. 

In 1946, the painting was purchased by Eleanor Knapik, a sculptor who lived in Chicago with her husband Eugene. Abercrombie was friends with the couple, as well as with their married sister and brother, Virginia and Harold Knapik, who lived in New York. The men were both involved in musical pursuits, among other things; Eugene crafted violins, violas, and other musical instruments. Abercrombie’s deep involvement in music as well as visual art links them. The Fisherman was most recently in a private collection in South Carolina. 

The painting adds an interesting chapter to our knowledge of Abercrombie’s development. In Abercrombie’s papers, there is a reference to only one other painting called Fisherman, dated 1933, which is also large in scale for the artist. Aside from these two paintings, the subject appears to be unique in Abercrombie’s work, in which her typical paintings feature a group of recognizable elements that dominate her compositions, and appear again and again in innumerable variations. It was also unusual for Abercrombie to paint a male protagonist, although on occasion she included Abraham Lincoln, John Carradine, or one of her husbands, in her work. 

While The Fisherman appears to be a conventional outdoor scene, it is not completely devoid of Abercrombie’s usual repertoire of motifs. The fisherman’s foot rests on a familiar rounded white stone that appears in many landscapes from this period, which, according to Dinah Livingston, Gertrude’s only child, referred to the family home in Aledo, Illinois, where Abercrombie spent summers with her extended family - always a source of warmth and well-being for her, an only child. 

In the Country (1941, Whitney Museum of Art), for example, made as a wedding gift for Abercrombie’s cousin Elinor Porter Carlberg, depicts a reclining woman looking out at a verdant and peaceful rural landscape. Centered in the foreground is the smooth white rock. 

The tree stump also makes frequent appearances in art of this period, as do the picnic basket and wine bottle in varying combinations. See, for example, Return to Living (1941, Private Collection), which includes the picnic basket and wine bottle as well as the smooth white stone; Girl Leading Horse (1941, Private Collection), in which the figure carries a picnic basket on a road with a smooth white stone on one side; the stone and tree stump appear in Horse and Blue House (1942, Illinois State Museum, Springfield); and the figure carrying the picnic basket appears again in such works as Moonlight Path (Visit at Midnite) (1941, formerly Maurer Collection) and Untitled (Figure on Moonlit Path) (c. 1940, formerly Maurer Collection). 

Abercrombie, who said, “it is always myself that I paint,” probably referring to the female figure who is so ubiquitous in her work, often used repeated personal emblems that become stand-ins for herself in her paintings. Thus the picnic basket, the white stone, the bottle of wine and the tree stump are more than simple landscape elements and were of some importance to her during the period from about 1939-42, linking The Fisherman with her more familiar subjects. 

The style of the painting is similar to a series of paintings created in Abercrombie’s earliest period that focus on bucolic landscapes. They share in their reverence for the American heartland, which was encouraged during the period of the Great Depression, presenting the landscape as lush and flourishing in an attempt to encourage optimism and hope for the future at a particularly difficult historical moment. The American government particularly promoted this point of view, and government sponsored art programs, under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration, supported many American artists during this trying period, including Gertrude Abercrombie. 

The landscapes seen in such paintings as In the Country and Untitled (Woman Sitting on a Log) (c. 1939, Illinois State Museum, Springfield) are not only fertile and verdant but quiet and peaceful, combining her positive feelings about her family’s home in rural Illinois with the requisite optimism regarding a future when the country would again be thriving. 

The Fisherman also displays Abercrombie’s attention to formal composition, the white stone echoed in the larger hills in the right background, the strict straight line of the fishing rod contrasting with the elegant curve of the line and the silhouette of the fish. A hint of the enigmatic so typical of Abercrombie’s mature work sneaks in with the presence of the dark bottomed clouds and the question of who will share the picnic. That is left, as it is in so many paintings by this artist, to the viewer to decipher. - Susan Weininger, Professor Emerita, Roosevelt University