{"id":608949,"date":"2026-09-23T06:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608949\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T06:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:44:12","slug":"long-lost-gertrude-abercrombie-painting-alderman-merriams-shells-bought-for-30-heads-to-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608949\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-lost Gertrude Abercrombie painting \u2018Alderman Merriam\u2019s Shells\u2019 bought for $30 heads to auction"},"content":{"rendered":"
The owner contacted art historian Susan Weininger, an authority on Abercrombie\u2019s work, who confirmed the painting was genuine, according to Smithsonian magazine.<\/p>\n
The 1951 painting depicts nine seashells belonging to Robert Merriam, a Chicago City Council alderman who represented Hyde Park, the neighbourhood where Abercrombie lived and worked. <\/p>\n
Unlike many of her better-known dreamlike compositions featuring cats, moons and other symbolic imagery, the shell painting is notable for being drawn from real objects, according to Artnet.<\/p>\n
Freeman\u2019s auction house senior vice-president Zack Wirsum described the work as \u201cmesmerisingly mysterious\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was painted during her most productive period, a moment when realism was just as important to Gertrude as the magical,\u201d Wirsum said.<\/p>\n
Abercrombie had gifted the painting to Dr John Reynolds in exchange for medical services. Photo \/ United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs<\/p>\n
Just weeks before the discovery, Wirsum had been telling visitors to an Abercrombie exhibition that works by the artist still occasionally emerge from estate sales. <\/p>\n
\u201cLittle did I know that one of those \u2018once in a while\u2019s would occur less than a month later,\u201d Wirsum said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe could not be more thrilled to now steward this magnificent rediscovery to the next chapter of its fascinating story.\u201d<\/p>\n
The auction house\u2019s research into the painting\u2019s history found Abercrombie had gifted it to John Reynolds, a doctor in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in exchange for medical services. <\/p>\n
It remained in Reynolds\u2019 family collection for decades, effectively hidden from the public for around 75 years before resurfacing at the estate sale.<\/p>\n
Abercrombie\u2019s paintings once typically sold for around US$10,000. More recently, dozens of works have exceeded US$100,000 at auction, while her 1950 painting Message for Mercy became the first of her works to top US$1 million when it sold at Sotheby\u2019s last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owner contacted art historian Susan Weininger, an authority on Abercrombie\u2019s work, who confirmed the painting was genuine,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3589,13212,149280,1443,37111,74,300038,8239,1978,682,3241,156,638,5346,2082,300037,7799,82,5511,17354,300039,5969,111,139,69,3074,1133,13311,20933,260092,61,300040,112010,4576,2173],"class_list":["post-608949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-3589","tag-13212","tag-abercrombie","tag-about","tag-acclaimed","tag-after","tag-alderman","tag-american","tag-auction","tag-being","tag-bought","tag-entertainment","tag-estate","tag-expected","tag-for","tag-gertrude","tag-heads","tag-identified","tag-just","tag-longlost","tag-merriams","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-painting","tag-sale","tag-sell","tag-shells","tag-surrealist","tag-to","tag-us250000","tag-us30","tag-work","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}