Thirty Dollars, Then $1.35 Million: Gertrude Abercrombie Reaches a New High in New York

At Freeman's in New York on October 1, Gertrude Abercrombie's 1951 canvas "Alderman Merriam's Shells" brought $1.35 million. No work by the artist has ever done better at auction. The number collectors will remember is the one that came before it. At one point the same picture went for $30, sold off with the contents of an estate. Those two prices sit at opposite ends of the market. One belongs to the folding table, and the other to the salesroom. Here they belong to a single painting, with the same title and the same 1951 date. For anyone who walks the previews in this city, it shows that a good eye can turn up good work far from the catalog page, and that New York is still where such a discovery gets its full due.

With reporting from ARTnews.