A painting by Chicago artist Gertrude Abercrombie, purchased for $30 at a Michigan estate sale, just sold for $1,352,600 at auction.
Abercrombie’s 1951 painting “Alderman Merriam’s Shells” sold at Freeman’s Auctions for significantly more than the anticipated $150,000 to $250,000, making it the highest price ever paid for one of the artist’s works. Until the early 2000s, Abercrombie’s paintings were often found in thrift stores.
The painting, measuring just 8 by 11 inches, was given to John Reynolds, a physician in Kalamazoo, Michigan, by Gertrude Abercrombie in exchange for surgical services. In the 1980s, according to CityBiz, Abercrombie expert Susan Weininger documented that Reynolds still owned the painting. However, it later vanished from public view and entered his estate after he lent it to several major museum exhibitions…