Untitled (Abstract)

1949
Greenberg, Sanford

Object Details

TITLE:
Untitled (Abstract)
DATE:
1949
MEDIUM:
Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS:
28 x 34 in.
CREDIT LINE:
Museum purchase, 2014

On view

Frances M. Maguire Hall
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Description

Greenberg depicts a strange, industrial form whose curving and triangular shapes interact with grid-like lines. Gestural brushstrokes with somber colors make for a dynamic impact with an undercurrent of delicacy. As with many of the artist’s paintings, the composition relies heavily on contrast, with the off-white brushstrokes of the foreground burning bright against the grounded grays and blacks behind.  

Greenberg attended the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (later the University of the Arts), after which he served in the US military during World War II. He went on to study with Fernand Léger in Paris and exhibited in that city before returning to Philadelphia, where he participated in a 1952 group show at the Hendler Galleries with such notable figures as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning. Greenberg was a founding member of the artist collectives Group ’55 and the Philadelphia Abstract Artists. 

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