Pawel Kromholz and Barbara Greenberg are the artmakers. We work both separately and together - Pawel does mainly painting and sculpture, and Barbara makes bronze furniture. We collaborate directly on door and cabinet hardware, although, as we have been sharing a studio for more than 30 years, each has some impact on almost everything the other does.

Pavel Kromholz and dog

Pawel was born and educated in Poland, and was a member of the painting faculty at the School of Art in Poznan from his graduation until he left Poland in 1977. He has exhibited his work throughout Europe and the United States, and is represented in many public and private collections. From 1977-91 Barbara and Pawel lived primarily in New York, where Pawel had a studio for the conservation of classical antiquities, and worked for most of the leading dealers in the field. Since 1991 they have been living and working in Maastricht, the Netherlands, where Pawel focuses on figurative painting and sculpture.

Barbara was born in Montana, and graduated from Bennington College in Vermont. From 1974-77 she did postgraduate work in the studio of Magdalena Abakanowicz at the Poznan School of Art, and in 1980-81 she was Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Western European Regional Research in 1986. When she and Pawel lived in New York, Barbara focused on site-specific projects and installations, but she also built up an archive of photos and drawings of ancient objects which she uses in her bronze furniture and hardware designs.

Barbara's furniture is very classical, not very distantly Roman, and distinctly handmade. She and Pawel do all of the modelling together, the pieces are cast at foundries in Belgium and the Netherlands, and chased, assembled, and finished at the Greenberg-Kromholz studio in Maastricht

Pawel and Barbara often work on commission, making things for specific projects or particular clients, and some aspect of the client's name, profession, or passion may be worked into the design. They have made a set of bronze cabinet pulls, cast from magnolia seedpods, for a client who collects magnolia trees, and a table with two squirrels for a banker. A dog is a symbol of fidelity, and several clients have asked for a small figure of their own pet to be set on a table. The large hanging wreath lamp, made of bronze twigs and leaves, has a symbol for each member of the family - there are four monkeys (the clients have four children), a salamander (he is a hydrogeologist), a songbird (for her), and an owl (the grandmother). The laurel leaves signify nobility and accomplishment, and the ivy, steadfastness. Hunters may ask for a table or a lamp with stags, wild boars, running hares, and hounds. A pair of diplomats ordered a table set with figures from one of La Fontaine's stories, illustrating the value of respect for others and the folly of ego. It is also possible to echo some aspect of a house's existing decoration in new hardware - to incorporate the flourish of some moulding into a set of andirons, for example.

Click on Projects for a list of completed projects and collections which include our work. Click on Orders for information about commissioning drawings, paintings, sculpture, or furniture.