Signed, titled and dated on the reverse
In Derrick Greaves. From Kitchen Sink to Shangri-La (Lund Humphries 2007), James Hyman writes about this painting and the way in which Greaves combines different formal languages:
"In Acropolis (1999) Greaves combines a small sketchbook drawing of the Acropolis with a separate, totally unrelated drawing of a geometric form, jamming these two pictorial structures together to convey an evening in which a cacophony of voices discussed their thoughts on Athens. The hillside and Acropolis are a single-coloured structure that is left without infilling, while the geometric form is polychrome. Superficially, such a painting may resemble the combining of languages to be found in the paintings of Patrick Caulfield, yet the use of line and conception of space is fundamentally different. In Greaves's work, the line may or may not relate to the form and the visibility of an all-over ground may be used to suggest transparency, whereas in Caulfield's work line often indicates the contour of an object, which is then filled in like a cloisonné or enamel inlay. For Greaves, the repercussions are not merely formal; this is not simply a formal device or a means of complicating the picture space. It also has a psychological dimension and an existential resonance that reflects his admiration for such Modernist classics as T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and James Joyce's Ulysses with their inventive syntax, multiple voices and interpenetrating realities."
Provenance
Claire and James Hyman, London
History
Derrick Greaves, Paintings and Drawings 1952 - 2002, James Hyman Gallery, 28 January - 4 March 2005
Literature
Derrick Greaves: Paintings and Drawings 1952 - 2002, James Hyman Gallery, London, 2003, (cat. 37), illustrated p.31.
James Hyman, Derrick Greaves:From Kitchen Sink to Shangri-La, Lund Humpries, London 2007, illustrated p.157.