Colin Middleton RHA (1910-1983) Snow (1954) Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 53.5cm, (14 x 21'') Signed. Signed again, inscribed and dated 1954 Exhibited: 'Colin Middleton Retrospective Exhibition...

Colin Middleton RHA (1910-1983) Snow (1954) Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 53.5cm, (14 x 21'') Signed. Signed again, inscribed and dated 1954 Exhibited: 'Colin Middleton Retrospective Exhibition (1939-1954)', 1955 Victor Waddington Galleries Cat. No. 32 priced at ?90.0.0 'Snow' is a haunting and unsettling painting, its apparent simplicity subtly undermined to establish an atmosphere of ambiguity not unusual in Middleton's work of the period. A controlled palette of cool greys and blue sets off the snow, flecks of white that fall into more solid passages. The female figure is solidly built up in equally cold tones, the face a frostbitten blue, with the pattern on her dress recalling Middleton's design work, never far away at any point. It is, so far, a conventional, slightly fairytale-ish painting, reminiscent of Middleton's 'Goose Girl' from the previous decade. But a second glance reveals the uncertain contortions of the figure; she appears to be turning to look behind her, her old-fashioned skirt billowed up by the wind and pulling her coat closed with her right hand. But it is almost more natural to read the bustle in her skirt as being behind her, with the torso and arm impossibly contorted. Middleton draws our attention very clearly to this by putting her hand right at the centre of the painting, the only use of warm colours in the work. This figure seems to relate to the wandering refugees of Middleton's post-war period, vulnerable to the elements, apparently with nothing other than her clothes, an identity stripped back to the core. Isolated and unable to fight the cold, her position is suggested subliminally but powerfully. Dickon Hall, May 2007

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