Colin Middleton , RHA, (1910 - 1983) The Sisters, 1959 Oil on canvas, 61 x 46cm (24 x 18'') Signed Exhibition: Colin Middleton Exhibition IMMA, Jan - Jun 2001 Northern Artists from the McClelland...

Colin Middleton , RHA, (1910 - 1983) The Sisters, 1959 Oil on canvas, 61 x 46cm (24 x 18'') Signed Exhibition: Colin Middleton Exhibition IMMA, Jan - Jun 2001 Northern Artists from the McClelland Collection, Droichead Arts Centre Literature: 'Colin Middleton' - A Study, Dicken Hall 2001, Illustrated p. 64 The Sisters 1959 The late 1950's were a period of transition for Colin Middleton. He was no longer represented by Victor Waddignton, with whom he had achieved success in the post-war years, and he had also moved to Portrush on the north coast. He soon began a parallel career as an art teacher that was to last for most of the next two decades. Equally dramatic changes were happening in Middleton's painting, with an increasing interest in abstraction and patterning and increasingly theoretical use of colour beginning to dominate. Earlier that decade Middleton had often depicted single female figures, usually looking directly out at the viewer, as a focus for expressing emotion of for the emotional expression of ideas, and he had become particularly interested in their symbolic power. The three sisters are shown in profile, which allows Middleton to create a more dynamic arrangement of shapes, but they still carry great weight despite this abstraction, and although these women do not confront us with their severe appraising gaze, the single eye visible in each still manages to intimidate. Dicken Hall, November 2005 There is a line drawing of this work which had previously been in the Lewinter-Frankl Collection which is now in the Collection of Irish Museum of Modern Art.

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