The catalogue was edited with texts by Eric Crosby and Sarah Humphreville. Other contributors include Katie Anania, Donna M. Cassidy, John Corbett, Cynthia Stucki, and Jacqueline Terrassa.

Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery is the definitive scholarly volume on Chicago artist Gertrude Abercrombie, who was a critical figure in the midcentury Chicago art and jazz scenes. Abercrombie was a creative force of singular vision who, from the 1930s until her death in 1977, produced enigmatic paintings full of personal significance. With a deft hand, a concise symbolic vocabulary, and a restrained palette, she produced potent images that speak to her mercurial nature and her evolving psychology as an artist. Cats, owls, doors, moons, barren trees, seashells, and searching female figures all converge in her mysterious works, which suggest a life of purposeful introspection and emotional struggle. Drawing consistently on her dreams as source material, Abercrombie said, “The whole world is a mystery.”

The jury noted that Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery is a rich and ambitious document that is certain to serve as an enduring resource for scholars, artists, and art enthusiasts. The jury was impressed with how the catalogue so vividly enriches our knowledge of the life and work of a vital, but underacknowledged artist, while offering a wealth of information on midcentury American culture and undercurrents.

Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery accompanies the artist’s first retrospective since 1991: an eponymous exhibition which began at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh before traveling to the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine and the Milwaukee Art Museum.