$30 Estate Sale Find Could Fetch $250,000
A $30 estate sale painting turns out to be a long-unseen work by Gertrude Abercrombie, now estimated at up to $250,000.
A painting picked up for just $30 at a Michigan estate sale is headed to auction with an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000 after being identified as a work by Chicago Surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie.
Alderman Merriam’s Shells, painted in 1951, had been out of public view for decades when it turned up this summer. The buyer, a longtime collector of record albums and mid-century furniture, arrived late to an estate sale in July after much of the merchandise had already been picked over.
However, hanging in a dark hallway leading to the garage was a curious still life depicting nine seashells. Other shoppers had apparently passed it by, but the buyer noticed a signature in the lower-left corner reading “Abercrombie” and decided it was worth a $30 gamble.
That gamble could produce quite a return.
Later that summer, the new owner altered plans for a family vacation to visit Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery, a traveling retrospective then on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum. While looking through the exhibition catalog, the collector discovered an archival photograph of the very same painting.
The image, originally published in connection with a 1952 exhibition of Abercrombie’s work at Chicago’s Newman Brown Gallery, showed the painting in its original frame with the actual shells depicted in the work arranged in front of it.
Abercrombie scholar Dr. Susan Weininger subsequently authenticated the painting. The owner then contacted Freeman’s, which had sponsored the Milwaukee exhibition.
The story behind the painting is nearly as unusual as its rediscovery. The shells belonged to Robert Merriam, an alderman representing Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, where Abercrombie lived and worked. Unlike many of the mysterious objects appearing in the artist’s surreal compositions, the shells in this painting were drawn directly from life.
The work also provides insight into a motif Abercrombie would revisit. A small nautilus shell near the center bears a hole and crack that later appeared in her paintings of solitary shells, suggesting those details came from an actual object rather than solely from the artist’s imagination.
Alderman Merriam’s Shells was exhibited in six of Abercrombie’s solo exhibitions during 1952 and 1953, including shows in Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, and Evanston, Illinois.
Then it slipped from public view.
In early 1952, Abercrombie gave the painting to Dr. John Reynolds of Kalamazoo, Michigan, in exchange for medical services. It remained in Reynolds’ collection for the rest of his life before passing through his estate. Decades later, it wound up hanging in an estate-sale hallway with a $30 price tag.
Before heading to auction, the painting underwent professional conservation to remove accumulated grime and an aged, clouded varnish layer. Freeman’s said the work itself had no significant condition problems, and cleaning revealed colors and details that had been obscured over time.
Alderman Merriam’s Shells will be offered as Lot 3 in Freeman’s Post-War & Contemporary Art auction in New York on Oct. 1 with an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000.
For collectors who still believe the best discoveries can happen after everyone else has picked through the sale, Alderman Merriam’s Shells offers a compelling reason to check the dark hallway by the garage before heading home.
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