31
Colin Middleton MBE RHA RUA (1910-1983)
Estimate:
€30,000 - €50,000
Passed
Live Auction
Important Irish Art
Size
20 by 26in. (50.8 by 66cm)
Description
Title: MUSIC, 1953
Note: Colin Middleton enjoyed music, and the series of paintings of his second wife Kate seated at their piano, which began in the late 1950s, involved him for more than a decade. The present painting, completed earlier in that decade, shows Middleton at the height of his powers as an expressionist painter working in the northern European tradition (James Ensor was a notable influence). Throughout this period, Middleton was haunted by the war and its aftermath, and its impact on the individual. The turbulent swirling brushwork that dominates Music, and its broad tonal range, evoke an indistinct landscape in which a sense of counterpoint is established between the two musicians. The female violinist is vulnerable in her nakedness, or perhaps a gauzy, transparent dress. Her instrument is that of the wandering musician; she could be one of the dispossessed figures that populate Middleton's post-war work, yet her fair hair and blue eyes radiate youth and optimism and pictorially she dominates the painting. The mysterious pianist, dressed in black, is cast in opposition to her, seated at a grand piano, an instrument redolent of stability and prosperity and very different from the upright whose abstract properties subsequently became of such interest to Middleton. She draws the viewer towards the dark triangle of the lower right-hand corner of the painting, in which two figures, apparently listening to the musicians, seem to be cast adrift and helpless. When first exhibited in Dublin in 1955, the Irish Times reviewer found the work to reveal "flashes" of Middleton's "surrealist idiom", praising the exhibition as a whole for its breadth of style and experimentation (undated newspaper clipping held by N.I.V.A.L., Dublin). 'Music, 1953' is open to a number of interpretations, and is full of ambiguity, but it is a strong and unsettling picture in which no single mood dominates.Dickon Hall,August 2024
Frame dimensions: 25 by 31in. (63.5 by 78.7cm)
Note: Colin Middleton enjoyed music, and the series of paintings of his second wife Kate seated at their piano, which began in the late 1950s, involved him for more than a decade. The present painting, completed earlier in that decade, shows Middleton at the height of his powers as an expressionist painter working in the northern European tradition (James Ensor was a notable influence). Throughout this period, Middleton was haunted by the war and its aftermath, and its impact on the individual. The turbulent swirling brushwork that dominates Music, and its broad tonal range, evoke an indistinct landscape in which a sense of counterpoint is established between the two musicians. The female violinist is vulnerable in her nakedness, or perhaps a gauzy, transparent dress. Her instrument is that of the wandering musician; she could be one of the dispossessed figures that populate Middleton's post-war work, yet her fair hair and blue eyes radiate youth and optimism and pictorially she dominates the painting. The mysterious pianist, dressed in black, is cast in opposition to her, seated at a grand piano, an instrument redolent of stability and prosperity and very different from the upright whose abstract properties subsequently became of such interest to Middleton. She draws the viewer towards the dark triangle of the lower right-hand corner of the painting, in which two figures, apparently listening to the musicians, seem to be cast adrift and helpless. When first exhibited in Dublin in 1955, the Irish Times reviewer found the work to reveal "flashes" of Middleton's "surrealist idiom", praising the exhibition as a whole for its breadth of style and experimentation (undated newspaper clipping held by N.I.V.A.L., Dublin). 'Music, 1953' is open to a number of interpretations, and is full of ambiguity, but it is a strong and unsettling picture in which no single mood dominates.Dickon Hall,August 2024
Frame dimensions: 25 by 31in. (63.5 by 78.7cm)
Condition
This work appears to be in very good condition. There are one or two 2 x 2mm regions of loss of the painted surface upper right. Otherwise the painted surface is clean and stable.
Medium
oil on canvas
Signature
signed lower right; inscribed with title, dated [1953], numbered [168] and signed again on reverse
Provenance
Whyte's, 29 April 2006, lot 62;Private collection
Exhibited
’Colin Middleton 1939-1954’, Victor Waddington Gallery, Dublin, June 1955
