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A clairvoyant collector with an eagle eye for quality art snagged a painting at a Michigan estate sale this summer for a mere $30 — and now it’s expected to fetch up to $250,000 at a Manhattan auction.
The unnamed buyer realized they might have something special on their hands when they spotted a signature in the lower-left corner of the thrifted artwork — “Abercrombie, ’51.”
And they were right.
The signature belonged to the late legendary American surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie.
Wanting to learn more about the artist of their newly acquired piece, the savvy purchaser visited the touring exhibition, “Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery” at the Milwaukee Art Museum — and was shocked to see a photo of their painting — “Alderman Merriam’s Shells” — in its original frame in the exhibition’s catalog.
Susan Weininger, an art historian at Roosevelt University considered to be an expert on Abercrombie, authenticated the painting, according to Smithsonian magazine.
The lucky buyer, “a longtime hunter of record albums and mid-century furniture,” then contacted Freeman’s Auctions, which was sponsoring the exhibit — and now the auction house is selling the piece at their Upper East Side location in its “Post-War & Contemporary Art” auction on Oct. 1.
The artwork depicts nine seashells that belonged to Robert Merriam, an alderman on the Chicago City Council who represented Hyde Park, where Abercrombie — a prominent figure in the Windy City’s mid-20th century art scene — lived and painted.
“The shells are alluringly awkward and seemingly lonely in a crowd, much like Abercrombie herself. It’s mesmerizingly mysterious, as with all her finest paintings,” Zack Wirsum, senior vice president at Freeman’s, told Artnet.
Ironically, just weeks prior to the auction house’s acquisition, Wirsum had told visitors that works by Abercrombie — who died in 1977 at 68 — are sometimes discovered at estate sales.
“We could not be more thrilled to now steward this magnificent rediscovery to the next chapter of its fascinating story,” he said in a statement.
