A painting bought for $30 at a Michigan estate sale just sold for $1.35 million. A picker spotted Gertrude Abercrombie’s 1951 work “Alderman Merriam’s Shells” in a hallway while hunting for albums and midcentury furniture. Freeman’s had estimated it at $150,000 to $200,000, and it sold for a record price for the artist. Abercrombie, a Chicago painter who had only a local cult following in her lifetime, reportedly traded the 8 by 11 inch piece to her doctor in exchange for surgery. Her paintings were still turning up in thrift stores into the early 2000s. #hosted #pubity #viral