One of the latest hot connections in the Chicago arts community this year was a dinner with a civic and cultural institution called Gertie. Coinciding with an event at Chicagoland Fair, the city’s largest art fair, this invitation-only dinner could include artists like Nick Cave, galleries like Patron Gallery, and Theaster Cultural entities such as the Theaster Gates’ Rebuild Foundation. Getty and Friends also led public art projects for the Democratic National Committee, hosted an event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and were quoted in The New York Times and Vanity Fair Magazine. This is all impressive given that the agency only launched in 2022.
“I’m always trying to connect things to Gertie or create opportunities for the people around us,” founder Abby Pucker told the Observer. “When I was young, my mom used to say I would open an envelope.”
Gertie had a secret to her great success. The 32-year-old is a scion of the billionaire Pritzker family, which made its fortune through the Hyatt hotel chain and is one of the 10 richest families in the United States. The Pritzker family has long supported Chicago’s arts scene, where big names abound. For example, J.B. Pritzker is his cousin and has been the governor of Illinois since 2019.
Other family luminaries include Anthony Pritzker, a longtime donor to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and Jennifer Pritzker, founder of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library and the world’s only openly transgender billionaire. Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker also serves as director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Gigi Pritzker Pucker (Abby’s mom) is a board member of the Children’s Museum of Chicago.
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Yet Abby Pucker is part of Pritzker’s emerging group, and her campaign offers insight into changing generational patterns, as established patrons, donors and fundraisers As we age, this generational pattern increasingly drives cultural change. Notably, her unconventional approach has earned her a spot on The Observer’s 2024 Arts Business Impact Rankings.
“I think a lot of institutions are really used to the model of naming a wing, naming a space, or naming something, and I really don’t think that’s how the next generation wants to interact, for the most part,” Pook said. “People do crave connection, they want to be a part of something.”
To that end, Gertie has launched a membership network called EarlyWork, which offers dinners, social events and artist studio tours for $55 a month (by comparison, that’s four cents on the price of a membership at Chicago’s SoHo House one).
“Everybody has the same question, right? Collectors are aging and people are trying to figure out where are the next generation of donors?” Pook said. “I can be a conduit to the civic and business leaders of my generation.” “
One of Pook and Getty’s earliest supporters was Monique Meloche, whose eponymous Monique Meloche Gallery exhibited Mickalene Thomas ), Hank Willis Thomas and Carrie Mae Weems. Meloche has seen many ups and downs in the city’s arts economy since opening in 2000, and she said Getty has delivered results.
“The number of people Gerty drove into the gallery while she was doing this [events]I’m talking 500 to 800 people a day — that’s crazy for Chicago,” Meloche told the Observer. “Maybe this is common in New York, but in the twenty-five years I’ve had the gallery, those numbers don’t count.”
Meloch attributes part of Getty’s success to the hands-on efforts of Pook and Getty’s employees, even as their business expanded. “She’s well-known here, she’s civic-minded, she supports institutions, she’s in the galleries a lot, so people know her. You know, it doesn’t hurt that she’s affiliated with the Pritzker family — it’s a family that people know name – but she worked really hard.
Puck’s approach is reminiscent of the city’s former cultural affairs commissioner, Lois Weisberg. Malcolm Gladwell commented on Weisberg’s ability to connect people across the city, and her legacy includes renovating the Harold Washington Library, developing the Chicago Blues Festival and helping build the city’s iconic of Millennium Park (with input from Puck’s grandmother, Cindy Pritzker). The comparison is familiar to those who know Pook.
“[Weisberg] “He was an incredible person,” Expo Chicago founder Tony Karman told the Observer. “Not only did she have a strong intuition about the well-being of our city and cultural community, but she also proposed many new ideas for Chicago. Initiatives. Both of these things apply to what [Pucker] Doing so with Gertie and her other initiatives.
Kaman, who worked with Weisberg and Pook, said Pook and Getty faced different headwinds than Weisberg did in the late 20th century, but Pook’s unique position was invaluable to Chicago.
“Her generation will join the descendants of other prominent families in shaping our city,” Carman added. “I think she showed them how to be equally active in the arts and cultural community.”
