IMPORTANT IRISH ART 25 MAY 2026

64 37 Colin Middleton MBE RHA RUA (1910-1983) MAGDALENE, 1939 oil on canvas signed and dated lower left 18 by 24in. (45.7 by 61cm) Frame Size: 28 by 33in. (71.1 by 83.8cm) Provenance: Adam’s, 4 December 2007, lot 37 as Mary Magdalene and the Holy Trinity; Private collection Exhibited: ‘Colin Middleton Exhibition’, Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, 1943, catalogue no.1 ’Colin Middleton Retrospective Exhibtion’, Victor Waddington Galleries, 1955, catalogue no.1 It is extremely likely that this painting is Magdalene (1939), which was the first work listed in Middleton’s 1943 one-person exhibition at Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. The Museum had closed in the early months of the SecondWorldWar, and re- opened with Middleton’s extensive and ambitious exhibition, the central part of which was a highly structured programme of seventy-four paintings divided into eight groups, which can be read as a journey that is both autobiographical, technical and philosophical, exploring a complex and multi-faceted symbolism. Magdalene was clearly an important painting for Middleton, placed at the beginning of the exhibition. The precision of Middleton’s draughtsmanship and the highly-finished surface demonstrate technical skills associated with his work as a damask designer, to which the roll of pale fabric is also perhaps a reference. There is additional autobiography in the work’s iconography; the three headstones are perhaps a reference to the death of his wife, Maye, in 1939, while the structure of the church building recalls St Peter’s Church on the Antrim Road in Belfast, where they had been married in 1935. The female archetype was the most significant and enduring symbol in Middleton’s work, and it embodies a range of meanings and interpretations as the exhibition develops. The headdress worn by the figure on the right is connected to the other elements of the painting by the threefold repetition of forms, and this repetition suggests the dialectical ideas of Hegel, a strong influence on Middleton’s work at this time. The exhibition charts a journey towards a sense of personal rebirth, in growing harmony with the natural world, with an accompanying synthesis of various aspects of the individual personality. As the starting-point, Magdalene sets out the ideas that Middleton would explore within the eight groups. Despite the challenging and highly-intellectualised nature of the 1943 exhibition, it was well-received by many in Belfast; John Hewitt noted that it confirmed Middleton’s place as ‘our most considerable painter’ and it remains a highly significant event within the history of Irish modernism. Dickon Hall, April 2026 €30,000-€40,000 (£26,090-£34,780 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot37