From Bargain to Bonanza: The $30 Michigan Estate Sale Painting That Shattered Auction Expectations
The Chicago TribuneGertrude Abercrombie said that she liked to paint simple things, but in a strange way.
Her work quickly gained positive attention from critics, and Abercrombie got her first one-woman show at the Chicago Art Institute in 1944.
In the early 1950s, Abercrombie was at her most productive, completing painting after painting, at least in part due to financial concerns.
Abercrombie had been married to a lawyer named Bob Livingston, but that ended in 1948. She then married Frank Sandiford, who had been a small-time criminal and worked in a record store. Because Abercrombie’s financial situation had thus changed, she needed to produce many small paintings, which she sometimes made into pins and brooches. These were sold at local art fairs to help cover basic living expenses.
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian InstitutionGertrude Abercrombie’s reputation in the global art world grew immeasurably following an exhibition of her works in 2018.
Soon enough, however, Abercrombie became the “Queen of Chicago,” hosting many artists and intellectuals from across the Midwest in her Hyde Park brownstone.
By 1951, the year she completed Alderman Merriam’s Shells, she was already well-known in the neighborhood, and was frequently spotted out and about while wearing a peaked hat that famously made her look like a witch. Between that and her friendships with jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, Abercrombie became known to many as the “jazz witch.”
It wasn’t until 2018 that Abercrombie’s work was exhibited to a global audience. Since then, she has assumed her place as a titan of American surrealism, with 80 of her paintings having now sold for more than $100,000 at auction — with the recent $1.3 million sale the crown jewel of the bunch.
After reading about the Gertrude Abercrombie painting that sold for $1.3 million at auction after being bought at an estate for $30, take a look at these 40 photos of stunning street art from around the world. Then, read the true stories behind nine allegedly haunted paintings.
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