DVArtist, Art, Food and Everyday Things

Sunday, March 22, 2026

Welcome To

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration.

This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.

Most of you know, along with monster, I really love surrealism art. Today I want to share with you a woman who broke barriers in the US art world.

Gertrude Abercrombie
(1909–1977)

Gertrude Abercrombie was an American painter renowned for her contributions to the Surrealist movement in the United States. Her work, characterized by its dreamlike landscapes, enigmatic figures, and autobiographical elements, distinguished her as a prominent voice in a predominantly male-dominated art world. As a woman artist operating within the mid-20th century, Abercrombie's success and recognition were not only a testament to her exceptional talent but also an act of defiance against the gender norms of her time. Her influence extended beyond the canvas, as she became a central figure in the Chicago art scene, nurturing a community of artists, musicians, and writers. Abercrombie's legacy as an innovator within Surrealism and her role in paving the way for future generations of women artists underscore her impact on the art world.

Gertrude Abercrombie lived and worked in Chicago and was a prominent member of Chicago's Hyde Park arts community.

Abercrombie was known for surrealist oil paintings featuring dreamlike landscapes and fantasies. Her wide circle of friends included locally and nationally known artists, writers, and jazz musicians who made her home a popular avant-garde salon. She was the inspiration for Richie Powell's "Gertrude's Bounce" and, appeared as a fictional character in Malcolm, Eustace Chisholm, and as herself in Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue all by James Purdy.

The only child of Tom and Lula Janes [Jane] Abercrombie, Gertrude was born in Austin, Texas in 1909, while her opera singer parents were in town with a traveling company. In 1913, the family relocated to Berlin to further Jane's career, but the outbreak of World War I forced their return to the United States. They lived with Tom Abercrombie's family in Alledo, Illinois, before permanently settling in Chicago.

Gertrude Abercrombie had a facility with language and possessed musical and artistic talents. After graduation from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with a degree in romance languages in 1929, she studied figure drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a short time. She then enrolled at the American Arcademy of Art, also in Chicago, for a year long course in commercial art. Her first job was drawing gloves for Mesirow Department Store ads, followed by a stint working as an artist for Sears.

By 1932, Gertrude began painting seriously. The following summer, she participated in an outdoor art fair in downtown Chicago where she made her first sale and received favorable mention in a newspaper review of the event. Abercrombie's work that featured self-portraits

Self portrait 1935

and recurring images of personal symbols - trees, horses, owls, keys, shells, doors, stairways, ladders - began to attract attention. Beginning in 1934, Abercrombie was employment as a painter in the WPA Federal Art Project in 1934, enabling her to feel validated as an artist and move from the home of her conservative, Christian Scientist parents to her own apartment. The Chicago Society of Artists presented a solo exhibition of Abercrombie's work in 1934, and in 1936 she showed at the Katharine Kuh Gallery (along with Rita Stein and Nicola Ziroli). In 1936 and 1938 Abercrombie won prizes at the Art Institute of Chicago's Annual Exhibition of Works by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity.

She left the WPA in 1940 and married lawyer Robert Livingston. Their daughter, Dinah, was born in 1942, and they soon moved to a large Victorian house on South Dorchester St. where Gertude lived for the remainder of her life. The couple divorced in 1948. That same year she married Frank Sandiford, a music critic whose pen name was Paul Warren. An accomplished improvisational pianist, Gertrude Abercrombie became friends with many prominent jazz artists whom she met through Sandiford; in fact, Dizzy Gillespie performed at their wedding. Abercrombie and Sandiford separated in 1964.

The 1940s through 1950s were Gertrude Abercrombie's most productive and prolific period. Although she no longer painted many portraits, he work remained focused on the same themes and symbols. She believed that art was about ideas rather than technique and insisted that "It is always myself that I paint." During this period, Amercrombie exhibited widely in group shows and had solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Associated American Artists (New York), and Leonard Linn, Inc. (Winnetka, Ill.)

By the late 1950s, Gertrude Abercrombie began a long decline. Alcoholism started to take a toll. She suffered serious financial reverses, and in 1964 separated from Frank Sandiford. Debilitating arthritis eventually landed her in a wheel chair, and she became reclusive. In 1977, very near the end of her life, Gertrude Abercrombie was honored with a well-received retrospective exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago. She was able to attend the reception and enjoy seeing the many old friends who were at the event.

Gertrude Abercrombie died in Chicago in 1977. Her will established The Gertrude Abercrombie Trust that cared for and distributed to various institutions her own paintings and a personal collection of works by other artists to selected institutions, mainly in the Midwest.

With all of Abercrombie's accomplishments in art her life was also marred by inner turmoil, including loneliness and struggles with alcoholism. Her paintings, with their symbols, hint at the rich inner world of her dreams and personal meanings. “Surrealism is meant for me because I am a pretty realistic person but I don't like all I see.

I think some surreal artists do experience, loneliness, depression, and inner disturbance. It shows in their art and is a way to release the negative.

There is a book.

I think I'm going to order it.

I hope you enjoyed reading about

Gertrude Abercrombie.

sited; Natural Pigments, Art Institute Chicago, Monk Mink Pink Punk,

Smithsonian, Some photos from google.

That's it for now. I look forward to seeing you in Sunday in the Art Room.

Nicole

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Second Time Around. Margret Chung

Hi Everyone!

OK, my frustration has ended and I'm trying this again.

I saw a poster of this woman in my ophthalmologists office and had to look her up.

Margret Chung MD.

Margaret Chung in 1909, posing in an automobile. Her love of sports cars would later become common knowledge around San Francisco. (Shades of L.A. Archives, Los Angeles Public Library)

Margaret Chung spent her entire life defying stereotypes. She defied them when she became the first American-born Chinese woman to become a doctor. She defied them when she opened the first Western clinic in San Francisco’s Chinatown. And she subverted them in her personal life—whether she was donning masculine clothes, or taking care of countless “military sons.” Chung knew exactly what she was doing—she often made fun of stereotypes with her particular brand of humor. Stereotype bucking was a lifelong pursuit for Chung and it also made her enormously popular.

Margaret Jessie Chung was born in Santa Barbara in 1889, the oldest of 11 children. Her mother, Ah Yane, had been trafficked from China to San Francisco at the age of five and rescued by the Presbyterian Mission House in Chinatown six years later. Chung’s father, Chung Wong, was a merchant who suffered repeated business failures. Her childhood was spent bouncing around Southern California towns, as her family tried—and failed—to claw their way out of poverty.

At 12, Chung started working herself, slogging her way through long, grueling shifts at a restaurant, after school. Her strong work ethic was evident from the beginning, but being grossly underpaid imbued her with a fiery ambition. Chung even battled her way into a private, prestigious high school by winning a competition to sell the most Los Angeles Times subscriptions. (The paper then paid her school fees.)

After that, Chung went on to attend medical school at USC. One of only two women in her class during most of her time there, she told the Los Angeles Evening Post Record in 1914, “As the only Chinese girl in the USC Medical School, I am compelled to be different.” That was the period she first began wearing men’s suits—sometimes even referring to herself as "Mike." She was also responsible for founding the first medical sorority at the university. There were four fraternities when she arrived, but nothing for the female med students.

Margaret Chung (front row, center) with her USC classmates, sophomore year, 1915. (University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC University Archives.)

Throughout her schooling, Chung’s ultimate goal had been to become a Presbyterian missionary. She admired the women who’d rescued her mother from a life of servitude, but wanted to incorporate her medical training into the job to be of even greater service. But after graduation, at the age of 26, Chung’s plans were foiled by racist policy. Her three applications to become a medical missionary were turned down purely because she was of Chinese descent. Between 1875 and 1920, all Presbyterian missionaries were white. Chung was so devastated that she abandoned the church altogether.

My note; good for her.

To make matters more frustrating, Chung also struggled to get a hospital internship because of her gender, so she initially went to work as a surgical nurse in Chicago. It was there that she found the Mary Thompson Hospital, an institution specializing in the care of female patients by female doctors.

This is the hospital in 1922

After three years interning there, she moved onto Los Angeles’ Santa Fe Railroad hospital in 1916, where she became an accomplished surgeon. Chung was so popular there, one of her colleagues once suggested that “some of the men were deliberately getting hurt so that Dr. Chung could take care of them.”

Margret Chung

This was particularly remarkable given that in 1917, Chung’s father, his leg severed in a car crash, was refused admittance by a local hospital on account of his being Chinese. He died from the blood loss, unable to acquire medical assistance.

Looking back in 1939 about her time at Santa Fe Railroad, Chung told the Los Angeles Times: “I think that the [male patients] were so anxious to see what made the wheels go ’round in a woman doctor, much less a Chinese one, that they didn’t feel anything but curiosity for the first few days.”

Chung’s move to San Francisco came in 1921. She was invited to accompany two of her Hollywood patients there on vacation, and found herself immediately smitten with the city. She also saw great opportunity. “There were no Chinese doctors practicing American medicine and surgery in Chinatown,” she noted later, " I thought I saw a great future here.” She opened her office on Sacramento Street, a short walk from where her mother grew up in the Presbyterian Mission House.

Chung struggled to get her office off the ground until fate stepped in. After saving the life of a local businesswoman, Chung found herself overrun with new patients—mostly Chinese women for whom the businesswoman had translated at prior doctor’s appointments. Chung also benefited from the fact that many of these women had been uncomfortable getting physically examined by a male doctor. Soon, because of her office’s proximity to the Hall of Justice, she also had a large clientele of white male police officers.

Once Chung’s practice was successful, she began the business of transforming healthcare in Chinatown. She volunteered at a local school, teaching and giving free wellness checks to the 178 children there. Then, in 1925, she co-founded the Chinese Hospital and helmed the Gynecology, Obstetrics and Pediatrics unit there. She also participated in women’s organizations, including the San Francisco Medical Women’s Club and the San Francisco Women’s City Club.

As Chung became a well-known local figure, scandalous rumors spread about her sexuality and loose morals—she was known to date both women and men, and many of them were white. While this prompted some of her more old-fashioned patients to abandon her care, her reputation attracted lesbian couples who could not be open about their relationship status at other medical offices.

In addition, her reputation as a thoroughly modern woman—she drank in speakeasys and was often seen zipping around the city in smart suits and flashy sports cars—also attracted women seeking birth control, sterilizations and abortions. While Chung did not perform the latter, she offered referrals to trustworthy doctors who did.

“Around Dr. Margaret Chung has clustered the glamour and romance of both east and west,” an issue of The Californian noted in 1934. “Still well under middle age, this quiet voiced, attractive woman has achieved national fame as a physician and surgeon.” The article also noted that “every inch of wall space” in her consultation room was covered by signed photos of her most famous patients. They included Greta Garbo, Clark Gable and Joan Crawford.

It was a chance encounter, however, that would most raise Chung’s public profile. In 1931, after Japan invaded Northeast China and bombed Shanghai, a member of the U.S. Navy Reserves, Steven G. Bancroft, approached Chung to see if she knew a way for him to join the Chinese military. She didn’t. But, taking a shine to Bancroft, she invited him and six friends, all pilots, over for dinner. Chung hit it off to such a degree with the men that they were soon all eating, camping and hunting together on a regular basis.

One night, joking with Chung, one of the pilots said, “You’re as understanding as a mother … but hell, you’re an old maid and you haven’t got a father for us.”

Chung replied, “Well, that makes you a lot of fair-haired bastards, doesn’t it?” It was a moniker that stuck. And as word spread about “Mom Chung” and the “Fair-Haired Bastards,” the group became a sort of social club that many other military men quickly joined.

By 1937, Chung had over 500 “sons” serving in the RAF, Army, Navy and Marines. By the end of World War II, there were over 1,500—those of which who served on the sea, she nicknamed “Golden Dolphins.” She lived vicariously through the servicemen, and provided maternal love and support in return, often feeding and housing them before and after missions. She also gave each of them a small jade Buddha pendant, as a means to recognize one another while serving overseas. During the war, she sent care packages and daily letters to raise their spirits. Each Sunday, she held a huge dinner party for her “sons,” their guests, and a variety of celebrities, including John Wayne and Tennessee Williams. Up to 100 people attended each week and, at Thanksgiving, that number increased to 175.

Chung’s figurative adoptions of so many servicemen attracted a lot of positive press attention, even spawning a story in the Real Heroes comic book series in 1943. All of which raised her profile enough to make huge strides in her charitable campaigns. She co-founded Rice Bowl Parties—fundraising festivals held in seven hundred cities, including San Francisco. These parties went on to raise $235,000—the equivalent of $3.5 million today—to send aid to China. During the war, she also helped create the Women’s Naval Reserve, co-founded the San Francisco downtown Disaster Station, volunteered on its medical staff, and was an active member the Red Cross. In 1942, one newspaper, the Gustine Standard, called her “San Francisco’s Number One United States citizen.”

A 1943 comic book, ‘Real Heroes,’ featured a story about “Mom Chung and her 509 Fair-Haired Foster Sons.” (Parents' Magazine Institute)

At the end of the war, Chung became the first American woman to receive the People’s Award of China. She also received a citation, signed by President Truman, from the Red Cross for “meritorious personal service performed in behalf of the nation.” She continued to look after her “sons” as they adjusted back to civilian life and even personally secured jobs for 20 of them. Her door remained open to them all until her death in 1959, aged 69, from ovarian cancer. Mayor George Christopher was one of her pallbearers.
After her death, one of her “Fair-Haired Bastards” paid tribute to her in his diary. “God bless and rest her very beautiful soul,” Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood wrote. “There will never be another Mom Chung.

Sited; KQED PBS, EN Wikipedia, Photos via google

This post just touches the tip of Margret, "Mom" Chung's life.

I hope you enjoyed this.

Nicole

Friday, March 20, 2026

Friday Face OFF 3/20/26

Welcome To Friday Face OFF (FFO)

This is the place to show off your face art.

You know, ANY type of face, nature, the face of a flower, photography, drawings, paintings, AI. There just needs to be a face in your blog post, a link back to my blog and please use the image below.

Thank you.

I've been looking for happy faces on line for FFO challenge. Watching a lot of portrait artists shows, I've noticed that not many want to draw or paint teeth and ask the sitters to smile closed mouth. I like drawing teeth, it challenges me. So, trying to find a face that I like with a big happy smile has been difficult. I guess I will have to draw that from imagination.