Kieran O'Boyle
Head of Ireland & Northen Ireland
Lot 9
Colin Middleton R.H.A.(Irish, 1910-1983)Still Life 51 x 61 cm. (20 x 24 in.)
17 – 28 November 2023, 14:00 GMT
DublinSold for €7,680 inc. premium
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Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
Colin Middleton R.H.A. (Irish, 1910-1983)
Still Life
signed and dated 'Colin M 40' (upper right)
oil on canvas
51 x 61 cm. (20 x 24 in.)
signed and dated 'Colin M 40' (upper right)
oil on canvas
51 x 61 cm. (20 x 24 in.)
Footnotes
Provenance
Private Collection, Northern Ireland
Middleton's pre-war paintings explored a radical modernist voice that was unlike anything else in Ireland at that time, but the early events of the war and, in particular, the Blitz of Belfast in 1941, inspired a series of paintings of Belfast and its inhabitants, quiet and controlled works that demonstrate Middleton's empathy with those who had shared the traumatic experiences of those years.
This still life has something of the same quiet pleasure in the ordinary routines of daily life continuing among the chaos of the war, as can be seen in some of the streetscapes of the period. Still life, as a subject, is extremely rare amongst Middleton's work, although it becomes more frequent after the 1960s. The present painting might possibly be Still Life with Buttercups, one of only two still life paintings among the 115 works shown in Middleton's 1943 solo exhibition at Belfast Museum and Art Gallery.
The striking, decorative vase is intriguing; apparently, a vase of the same design but in different colours was still being used in the Middleton household into the 1960s, but it is possible that it was altered to work better tonally within this painting.
The present work is also technically close to these paintings of Belfast from the early years of the war. It shares the careful but ambitious tonal harmonies, repeated short brushstrokes often against primed canvas, and a careful manipulation of how the objects sit in space that connects and relates the planes within the painting.
It is impossible not to see this painting in the context of the war, as a defiant, perhaps nostalgic record of increasingly rare fruit, beautiful objects, and the plenitude of the natural world, but in recording it there is also a sense of its fragility.
We are grateful to Dickon Hall for compiling this catalogue entry.
