Gertrude and her husband, artist Balcomb Greene, were heavily involved in political activism to promote mainstream acceptance of abstract art.

After he quit teaching at Dartmouth, the couple traveled to Paris, France, for a year where for the only time during their marriage they shared a studio.

[1][3] Greene was one of the earliest American artists, possibly the first, to produce non-objective relief sculptures in the early 1930s.

[1] In 2016 her biography was included in the exhibition catalogue Women of Abstract Expressionism organized by the Denver Art Museum.

[7] Her health rapidly deteriorated and on November 25, 1956, Gertrude died at a New York City hospital of cancer.