Lot 56 Colin Middleton

Colin Middleton RHA, 1910-1983 GIRL WITH STRIPES Oil on canvas, 30'' x 24'' (76 x 61cm), signed and dated 1941, inscribed verso Exhibited: Colin Middleton Exhibition IMMA, Jan- June 2001 Literature: 'Colin Middleton' - A Study by Dickon Hall, 2001, illustrated p.11 From this early period through to as late as 1982, images of the single female figure recur frequently in Colin Middleton's painting. Their type is wide ranging, but figures in the first half of the 1940's tend to be more elusive and seductive and this is a particularly beautiful and delicate example. The background is divided into two predominant blocks, whose tones recur in the girl's clothes. A single stem and flowers to her left maintains a stillness and simplicity of mood. The girls head amd clothes are closely interrelated; the red of the earrings leads down to the edging of the shawl, whose simplicity balances the rhythmic pattern of the top beneath it. The folds give a shape and contours to the shawl, whose simplicity balances the rhythmic pattern of the top beneath it. The folds give a shape and contours to the shawl that add tonal range to the blue, and they also direct the eye down towards the hand that holds the shawl in place at the very bottom of the painting, a very common device in these early single figures to maintain a movement around the entire composition. The painting's power lies in the girl's gaze, which is challenging yet gives up nothing. Her features are clearly defined and modelled in strong colours. 'Girl with Stripes' formed part of the same group as paintings such as 'Muriel' and 'Girl with a Fringe' in the major exhibition of Colin Middleton's work in Belfast Museum and Art Gallery held when it re-opened after the blitz in 1943, described by the artist as ''a miscellaneous collection of works, executed at various stages of the central development,. considered worthy of place on their individual standing'', but outside the eight groups of the process of the ''primary work''. Dickon Hall, May 2006.