52
●
JOSEPH E. GREY II (1927 - )
Untitled.
Oil on canvas, 1950. 560x686 mm; 22x27 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto. Signed and dated
in oil, upper left verso.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection.
This early modernist oil is the first painting by this overlooked artist to come to auction. Raised in
rural Ohio, Grey earned a masters degree from the Columbus College of Art and Design. His career
as a painter peaked in 1958 when he won the prestigious Emily Lowe painting competition in New
York, the year after Hughie Lee-Smith. His 1958 watercolor
Bull and Fighter
is illustrated in Cedric
Dover’s
American Negro Art
. Grey then went on to pursue a career in advertising, and was an award-
winning art director for over 40 years. Grey’s watercolors have also been shown extensively with
the National Watercolor Society.
[4,000/6,000]