b'70Joseph Greenberg (1923 - 2007) Although Greenbergs artistic talent was honed in theHis paintings fall into clusters which are clearly derivative graphic arts, in particular those of the skilled advertisingof the sources which he encountered, yet succeed for the artist (he trained at Swinburne Technical School in themost part as highly competent and pleasing works. (See early 1940s as a Graphic Designer), he neverthelessthe oil/acrylic sketches on card from 1978, eg. Lot 462 et al possessed a very strong feeling for painting and - judgingwhich echo English post war artists like Paul Nash and the from the volume of paintings produced over his lifetime - antrio of elegantly Picasso-esque gouaches from 1963 which unwavering desire to paint.reflect Greenbergs fascination with masks, Lot 441.This desire and his evident tenacity in pursuing it, seemThis very considerable body of paintings include both to have been encouraged by a lifelong friendship withdirectly observed and semi-abstract landscape paintings the painter, Ray Crooke (1922-2015) and arguably by hissome deriving from holidays spent in Northern Queensland exposure to the vibrant art of 1960s London where he hadwith Ray Crooke (Lot 467), others which perhaps take their become well established as a successful commercialcue from Leonard French and Ian Fairweather (Lot 442) artist (and additionally something of a clever cartoonist). and yet others, with their charming fairground and Sunday-The inspiration and influence of the British Pop arts suchouting crowd scenes, rather more in the mode of School as J.B. Kitaj and Michael Andrews, is evident in a suiteof Paris or London Group (Lots 432 and 433). The majority of large and accomplished paintings dating from thoseexhibit, as earlier noted, various modes of Modernist years. One of these, titled The Social Page (Lot 456)figurative abstraction (eg Lots 492 and 499).is evidently related to a large pen and ink sheet of lightlyPerhaps the series of eccentric highly coloured and caricatured heads (Lot 457), and the transformation into ancharged collages, variations after the celebrated Byzantine assured painterly canvas is a measure of his innate abilitiesRavenna Mosaics of the Empress Theodora, which are as a painter. There continue to be glimpses of Englishso evidently tied to his collecting of icons and religious artists - Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland, Paul Nashsculptures, are among the most convincingly his own David Bomberg, and even the earlier Camden School and(Lots 453 - 455)London Groupand, later, of Australian Artists such asAt some point his painterly predilections and his highly Leonard Frenchs abstract Byzantine compositions.evolved skills in commercial art coalesced into a series of However, while he pursued this talent with paint,paintings about sport and its players (in a later auction). producing distinctive and highly competent bodies ofHorse racing too became a focus and there are a number of work on both canvas and paper, and exhibiting occasionalvery successful paintings that perhaps owe their inspiration works (presumably those he signed), he did not developto Degas (Lot 463) and in sharp contrast to Wyndham an authentic voice of his own. On reflection, we are leftLewis (Lot 486)to ponder whether he was actually looking for his ownThe body of paintings Joseph Greenberg produced over his vision or was instead painting to understand what otherslifetime and for his own pleasure are usefully understood were doing. as painterly explorations, as well as the expressions of a curious mind and exuberant sensibility, which are likewise reflected in his copious and considered collections of art and artifacts and in his successful career as a writer, commercial artist and teacher.Elizabeth Cross,Art Historian, Writer.434'