ELENBERG, JOEL (1948-1980)

“Rubicon Series” (1973)
Watercolour on paper laid on board
151.5 x 90.5cm
Signed lower right
*private collection, Sydney
 
Elenberg is a legendary, tragic, and influential Australian Artist & Sculptor (and close friend & muse of Brett Whiteley). He is perhaps Australia's most important Post-War Sculptor. He had no formal art training & took up painting soon after finishing school in 1962. He travelled to the Middle East in the mid-1960s & held his first exhibition in Melbourne in 1969 at Australian Galleries followed by another in 1971. Like Whiteley, he also showed at Bonython Galleries in 1972 . He also exhibited in Sydney in 1978 & 1982 & in Brisbane in 1979. His marble & bronze sculptures of the late 1970s are lyrical & deeply personal. His series of Masks explore the formal visual qualities of non-western cultures encountered on his travels to New Guinea, Latin America & Europe where he had spent time honing his craft at Carrara, the Italian town famous for it's marble. His sculptures regularly sell for over $100k. Elenberg’s paintings in the early 1970s were “raw” & deliciously undercooked yet they had a notable “bursting” flair that was usually held together in pictorial space within a loose flow of figurative or biomorphic forms. This early watercolour is from his 'Rubicon Series'. Influenced by the late 1960s drug scene & the war in Vietnam, Joel Elenberg’s early 1970s exhibitions showed works “focussing on violence & cruelty. Close friendships, softened Elenberg’s perspective and his work gave way to a series of tranquil watercolours and decorative paintings, inspired by nature.” In 1980, months before his death, Whiteley dedicated an entire show inspired by Elenberg, with a series of works using him as a muse. In July 1980, Elenberg was to die of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at the tragically early age of thirty-two in Wendy and Brett Whiteley’s company at their private villa at Sanur Beach in Bali.