Sweetheart Artists

In the month of love, we feature the artistic couple Balcomb and Gertrude Greene.

Balcomb Greene, a psychology student, and Gertrude Glass, an artist and teacher, were married in 1926. Balcomb took up art in the 1930s, after he and Gertrude savored avant garde artworks in New York City and Paris.

Influenced by artists in Europe, they both began working with geometric forms and advocated a new aesthetic in American art. Both were seminal members of the American Abstract Artists group, which promoted abstraction in the New York art world. Gertrude was its first paid employee and Balcomb was its first chairman.

Today's paper collages show the similarities in their works and ideas during the 1930s. Both regarded collages as preparatory studies for more elaborate works in oil painting or multimedia constructions.

Source: Virginia M. Mecklenburg. The Patricia and Phillip Frost Collection: American Abstraction 1930–1945 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1989).

Pictured top: Balcomb Greene, 1904–1990, Untitled (35-14), 1935, paper on paper, 7 1/2 x 9 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost.

Pictured bottom: Gertrude Greene, 1904–1956, Untitled (37-015), 1937, paper on paper mounted on paperboard, 9 x 12 1/16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost.