For several years Aston Greathead’s work has been greatly favoured by gallery clients, selling quickly once displayed. In this case, his Farmyard with Free Range Chickens has sold on the second day of the exhibition Kiwi Life: Past and Present.

In 1966 he won Sir Henry Kelliher’s Dawson Hallmark watercolour award, which propelled him to fame resulting in many commissions that came from remote farms where he enjoyed painting on location. His favourite medium was watercolours, but over time he used this less, in favour of acrylics and oils. His technique, derived from his earlier signwriting days, often used only a limited pallet of colours, whilke utilising the white of the canvas. This allowed him to paint relatively fast, often finishing a painting in less than a day.

He also donated works to charity: 1000 limited edition prints of his Keas at Dusk were donated to the Cancer Society in the 1980s, raising $200,000. In September 2008 he donated two paintings to an auction to raise money to upgrade the children’s section of the Temuka cemetery.