Colin Middleton, RHA (1910 - 1983) By the harbour, 1942 Oil on canvas, 76 x 51cm (20 x 30'') Signed Colin Middleton did not really find a consistent until around 1947, but his early work...

Colin Middleton, RHA (1910 - 1983) By the harbour, 1942 Oil on canvas, 76 x 51cm (20 x 30'') Signed Colin Middleton did not really find a consistent until around 1947, but his early work demonstrated his remarkable ability to assimilate a vast number of different influences without his painting becoming stilted or weak. Surrealism is the strongest early influence, but Middleton explores many avenues within this broad church, and 'By the Harbour' probably derives most from Joan Miro, while still demonstrating Middleton's enormous visual wit and invention and his astute and ambitious pictorial understanding. It belongs to a small group of paintings and drawings of the early 1940s in which forms are highly abstracted and simplified along rigidly geometric lines, while always retaining clear references to particular places or objects and a sense of their relation to one another. Middleton's spare and elegant use of colour enhances this spatial clarity, as so the series of smoking chimneys that run from left to right across the canvas, and the playfulness of the artist's intentions is best demonstrated by the juxtaposition of the chapel and the bar along the harbour walls, both key institutions in sailing life and tradition. Dicken Hall, November 2005

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