Gertrude Abercrombie's Self and Cat (Possims), (1953) installed at the Maurer residence in Chicago. The work sold for $375,000 in Hindman's "Casting Spells" auction.
Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
In Partnership with Hindman
Hindman Auction Sparks Renewed Interest in Chicago Artist Gertrude Abercrombie
The single-owner sale of 21 lots by the enigmatic painter achieves $2.8 million
Gertrude Abercrombie's Self and Cat (Possims), (1953) installed at the Maurer residence in Chicago. The work sold for $375,000 in Hindman's "Casting Spells" auction. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
While the Chicago art scene has never drawn the same level of attention as New York or Los Angeles, the Windy City has given the world a number of creative visionaries, including Theaster Gates, Judy Chicago, and Nathaniel Mary Quinn, as well as adopted talents like Nick Cave and Frank Lloyd Wright, who have dramatically influenced the cultural landscape. In recent years, another talented Chicagoan, painter Gertrude Abercrombie, is finally garnering well-deserved attention more than 40 years after her passing.
“Gertrude has been a legend in Chicago and almost like a mythological character, partially because of the aesthetic of the paintings,” says Joe Stanfield, director of the fine art department at Hindman, which recently mounted a single-owner sale of 21 pieces by the artist, “Casting Spells: The Gertrude Abercrombie Collection of Laura and Gary Maurer.” “She was a dynamic person and was very much the life of the party.”
Gertrude Abercrombie, Dinah Enters the Landscape, (1943) went for $150,000 in Hindman's "Casting Spells" auction. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
A pianist ensconced in the bohemian art scene of Chicago’s South Side, Abercrombie spent time with the period’s leading jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins, and earned notoriety as a unique character, frequently referring to herself as a witch (even dressing in kind), and tooling around town in Rolls-Royce. But she also battled personal demons and struggled with alcoholism—all of which found their way into her art.
“Blue Screen (1945) is my favorite example of sort of this juxtaposition of feeling that she had—it’s a very austere, lonely monastic room that she’s created but then the cat is very cleverly coming out from behind the screen and then going inside the screen in the painting within the painting, which is sort of whimsical and fun,” says Stanfield. “And I think that’s kind of who she was—she was dark and a troubled person, but also hilarious.”
Gertrude Abercrombie, Blue Screen (1945), which sold for $225,000, far exceeding its $50,000 to $70,000 presale estimate. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
On September 28, Hindman hosted a single-owner sale of 21 works by Abercrombie that achieved $2.8 million. Once in the private holdings of Chicago collectors Laura and Gary Maurer, the pieces traveled to New York for a preview at Madison Avenue gallery Sterling | Boos before being brought to market, where they attracted a wide-range of international bidders.
“What was really truly fascinating to me is how many people we did reach that were unfamiliar with her work in Chicago, nationally, even internationally,” says Stanfield. “We had people say, I found out about the sale, I’m very interested. Maybe those people bid, maybe they didn’t, but it at least broadened the scope and raised awareness of who she is and what what she was doing. And I think that her market will just continue to grow from the success of this sale.”
Gertrude Abercrombie's Self Imprisonment (1949) which sold for $281,250 in Hindman's September 28 auction. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
A fully packed auction room helped send prices above their pre-sale estimates with Abercrombie’s 1945 painting Blue Screen and Self-Imprisonment (1949) garnering multiple bidders, and Leaf, Shell and Jack (1957), a 5-by-4-inch canvas, being the evening’s biggest surprise, achieving $125,000 against an early estimate of $20,000 to $30,000. “Small paintings are what she’s truly been known for for an extended period of time,” says Stanfield. “The Maurer Collection actually included more large-scale works than most collections do, and the bidders still really responded to the smaller pieces.”
“Gertrude Abercrombie is somebody who I think myself and my colleagues have been championing for a long time but the world just now finally knows”
Joe Stanfield
Works from “Casting Spells: The Gertrude Abercrombie Collection of Laura and Gary Maurer installed at the Maurers’s residence. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
Works from “Casting Spells: The Gertrude Abercrombie Collection of Laura and Gary Maurer installed at the Maurers’s residence. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
Many of the paintings, which were previously displayed in an exhibition at the Elmhurst Art Museum and later New York’s Karma gallery, incorporate symbols often seen throughout Abercrombie’s Surrealist oeuvre such as moons, cats, roads, doors, and other ephemera. “She created this mythology and this iconography and revisited them constantly. There aren’t that many different elements that she was necessarily utilizing but she used them in such clever ways,” says Stanfield. “Everything about her I think is utterly fascinating and a part of what makes this sale so special and what made the Maurers’ collection so special. It isn’t just about the art; it’s about the history of who she was and she’s somebody who I think myself, my colleagues, and the people who taught me about her work have been championing for a long time but the world just now finally knows.”
This 8 x 10-inch canvas by Gertrude Abercrombie, The Door and the Rock (1971) realized $150,000 against a $40,000 to $60,000 pre-sale estimate in Hindman's September 28 sale. Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
“Casting Spells: The Gertrude Abercrombie Collection of Laura and Gary Maurer” kicks off Hindman’s 40th anniversary celebration which will continue with a number of decorative arts auctions later this month, including the collection of renowned Palm Beach philanthropists Robert and Mary Montgomery on October 6 and 7. This will be followed by Hindman’s European Furniture & Decorative Arts sale on October 18, which includes everything from collectible pianos by Steinway & Sons to Louis XV furnishings, as well as pieces from the spectacular Lake Shore Drive penthouse of collector and prominent Chicago businessman Michael L. Wilkie. Also on October 18, “Gold Boxes and Vertu from the Estate of a Prominent Kansas City Collector,” a single-owner sale, will over a stunning collection of 42 finely crafted boxes and objects of vertu.
Cover: Gertrude Abercrombie's Self and Cat (Possims), (1953) installed at the Maurer residence in Chicago. The work sold for $375,000 in Hindman's "Casting Spells" auction.
Photo: Courtesy of Hindman
