Gertrude Greene: Purity of Form

Gertrude Greene - Construction 1946 - 1946 - Oil on wood and fiberboard - 40 1/8 x 30 1/8 x 5/8 in. (101.9 x 76.5 x 1.6 cm.) - Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.American Abstract Expressionist Gertrude Glass Greene (1904-1956) was an abstract sculptor and painter from New York. Although she and her husband, artist Balcomb Greene (1904-1990), were heavily involved in political activism to promote mainstream acceptance of abstract art, Gertrude did not overtly express societal concerns in her art. However, she and Balcomb were founding members of the American Abstract Artists organization.

Gertrude was one of the earliest American artists to produce non-objective relief sculptures in the early 1930s. She synthesized Cubist and Russian Constructivists themes into her work, and was heavily influenced by what she saw as the “purity” of those two movements. By the 1940s, her work also revealed an interest in Mondrian and Neo-Plasticism. She produced her last sculpture in 1946. For the rest of her life she concentrated on abstract painting.