Chicago calligrapher, illuminator, and designer.

Gertrude Lueneburg Carrier (1902-1991) was a broadly talented calligrapher, illuminator, and designer, probably Chicago’s most prominent woman lettering artist in the middle years of the twentieth century. By the time of the calligraphic revival of the 1970s, she was mentor and model to many who were just then discovering the art of calligraphy, as well as a living link with the methods and ideals of Edward Johnston, which had been popularized in the U.S. by her teacher at the School of the Art Institute, Ernst F. Detterer (later curator of the Wing collection at the Newberry). Gertrude Lueneburg graduated from the School of the Art Institute in 1923. She worked for the Scriptorium of Coella Lindsay Ricketts in the mid 1920s and thereafter free-lanced, doing certificates, logos, letterheads, broadsides, greeting cards and bookplates. She married Edward J. Carrier in 1940. Among her most important clients was Samuel Cardinal Stritch (archbishop of Chicago, 1939-1958) who commissioned several sets of altar cards. From 1963 to 1978, Mrs. Carrier worked for the decorating studio of Milan Bulovic. A memorial article and interview appeared in the Chicago Calligraphy Collective Letter of 1995 in conjunction with a small exhibit of her work at the Newberry.