Colin Middleton RHA RUA MBE (1910-1983) Point of Phenick Oil on canvas, 76 x 51cm (30 x 20'') Signed, signed again, inscribed with title and dated June 1951, No. 113 Exhibited: ''Colin Middleton...

Colin Middleton RHA RUA MBE (1910-1983) Point of Phenick Oil on canvas, 76 x 51cm (30 x 20'') Signed, signed again, inscribed with title and dated June 1951, No. 113 Exhibited: ''Colin Middleton - Paintings 1947-52'', Tooth Gallery, London, Oct/Nov 1952, Cat. No. 8, priced £85; ''Colin Middleton Retrospective Loan Exhibition'', CEMA Galleries, Sept 1954, where leant by David Gibbs Literature: ''Collin Middleton - A Monograph'', by John Hewitt 1976, p32, illustrated p33; ''Art in Ulster I'', by John Hewitt1978, p136, where Hewitt describes this painting ''Among the twenty-seven canvases 'Point of Phenick' on of his best seascapes with moving sculpture of great waves and the flat topped rocks.'' Although Colin Middleton spent much of his life living near the sea, he painted a surprisingly small number of pure seascapes. Many of these date from the time he lived in Ardglass in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The work of this time displays an intensity perhaps inspired by the experience of living among the fishing communities of that area and seeing their history, superstition, beliefs and daily lives intertwined; certainly the sea in paintings such as Point of Phenick takes on a mythical quality that encompasses all these elements. Point of Phenick is reminiscent of Roderic O'Conor's seascapes of the 1890s in the manner in which they place the viewer almost within reach of the waves and tilt us slightly towards them. Small passages of high-toned colour define the light falling on rocks, but the painting is dominated by the varied blues of the sea and the contrasting black and white of the waves and rocks at the points where they meet, setting up a unsettling series of horizontals at sharp angles to the horizon line. Despite the turbulence of the paint surface and the sense of movement in the water, both sea and rocks have an immense and relentless solidity, described by John Hewitt as ''the unresting sculpture of the folded waves and the piled permanent rocks of Point of Phenick'', and they seem to clash like immovable objects. The present work was clearly highly regarded by the artist, as it was included in two retrospectives of Middleton's work, one held by Victor Waddington in 1955, the other the touring Arts Council exhibition of 1976 (it was also illustrated in the accompanying monograph). Dicken Hall, march 2013

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