WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 2 December 2019

78 62 Colin Middleton MBE RHA RUA (1910-1983) BLUE LANDSCAPE WITH TREES: NORTH ANTRIM, c. 1962 oil on board signed with monogram lower left 23.50 by 29.50in. (59.7 by 74.9cm) Provenance: ‘Colin Middleton Studio Sale’, Christie’s, Ocotber 1985, lot 113; Estate of the purchaser This painting was given the title Blue Landscape with Trees: Northampton when it was included in the Colin Middleton Studio Sale held in 1985, but the artist’s daughter, Jane Middleton Giddens, has suggest- ed that it was probably intended to be North Antrim rather than Northampton, as there is no record of the artist having visited England at that time. Dated in the studio sale catalogue to circa 1962, by which time Middleton was living in Lisburn but still visiting and painting the landscape around north Antrim where he had spent the previous five years, this is a painting of drama and tension that demonstrates the skill with which he balanced urgent and energetic brushwork with taut compositional organisation. The dark, spiky trees that dominate the fore- ground and set the mood of the painting also bring together its various planes, with the left-hand tree connecting the foreground with a distant hill and the cloudy sky, while the clump of trees to the right brings the heavy sky behind them and the valley just beyond them into contact. The intense palette is dominated by blues and black, recalling earlier paintings by Middleton such as Point of Phenick (1951), but the overall nocturnal mood is lifted by the lighter central passage of sky, towards which the trunks of the two outer trees on either side lead the eye. Dickon Hall, November 2019. €12,000-€18,000 (£10,340-£15,520 approx.) Click Here for Large Images & To Bid Lot 62