IMPORTANT IRISH ART 25 MAY 2026

66 38 Colin Middleton MBE RHA RUA (1910-1983) K AT THE PIANO, 1969 oil on board signed lower right; signed, titled and dated [Dec] on reverse 24 by 24in. (61 by 61cm) Frame Size: 27.5 by 27.5in. (69.9 by 69.9cm) Throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, Colin Middleton explored a process of abstraction from a number of specific motifs; of these, the image of his wife, Kate, playing the piano in their house, became the one to which Middleton returned most regularly, in paintings, drawings and watercolours, across more than ten years. This series began originally when they were living on the north coast, continued in Lisburn, when Middleton went to teach at Friends School, and then in their house on Camden Street in Belfast. In 1969, the year in which this work was completed, Middleton was awarded the MBE, and his status as one of the leading painters working in Ireland was confirmed in the following year, when he was elected to the Royal Hibernian Academy. The present work is based on a dramatic contrast between dark and light that is unusual within Middleton’s work. Although this is primarily a division between the pale mass of the figure, and the dark piano, Middleton builds in rhythm with the black square of the piano stool, and the pale grey horizontal of the piano keyboard. Shadows and some definition of forms are suggested by angular lines in muted colours, with the exception of a single, strong, red horizontal. Between the formal geometric shapes of the keyboard and the inset rectangle at the top of the instrument, the sheet music breaks down the abstract rigidity and also forms a V with the pianist’s arms, connecting the two areas of the painting. Middleton always seems to have preferred to work from a representational starting-point, but for him there was also clearly pleasure in analysing and experimenting with the abstract elements of the image to reinvent it in a new form. In the present painting, the definition of the hair around the ears is one of the remaining hints of the individual, but there is always an unusual intimacy in these works, as Middleton’s domestic life rarely intruded into his art. Dickon Hall, April 2026 €20,000-€30,000 (£17,390-£26,090 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot38