WHYTE'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART MONDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2024 AT 6PM

97 IMPORTANT IRISH ART · 30 SEPTEMBER 2024 AT 6PM 65 Colin Middleton MBE RHA RUA (1910-1983) ACROBATS, 1972 pen and ink with watercolour signed in monogram lower right; inscribed, dated and signed again on reverse 30.50 by 23in. (77.5 by 58.4cm) Frame Size: 36 by 28.25in. (91.4 by 71.8cm) Provenance: Caldwell Gallery, Belfast; Irish Paintings and Drawings, Christies, Belfast, 27 October 1989, lot 233; Collection of Dr Henry McKee; Whyte’s, 29 September 2008, lot 11; Private collection This unusually large and ambitious drawing, relating closely to a painting of the same title, epitomises many of Middleton’s concerns in the early 1970s. His reconciliation of the images of the landscape with the female form, both visually and symbolically, became wittier and more sexually charged around this period. One could view it as a shift away from Middleton’s interest in Henry Moore and towards a renewed looking at Picasso. The conceit of the acrobats encourages Middleton’s selective re-arrangement and distortion of the human form, with the two acrobats’ bodies rising layered and suggesting the rising of a landscape towards the sun. Dickon Hall €1,500-€2,000 (£1,260-£1,680 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot65