IMPORTANT IRISH ART Monday 23 November 2026 from 6PM

82 51 Colin Middleton MBE RHA RUA (1910-1983) COASTAL LANDSCAPE WITH TREES AND COTTAGE, 1937 oil on canvas signed and dated lower left; bearing John Magee Gallery label on reverse 18 by 24in. (45.7 by 61cm) Frame Size: 21.5 by 27in. (54.6 by 68.6cm) Provenance: John Magee Gallery, Belfast; Private collection; Whyte’s, 4 October 2010, lot 100; Private collection In 1937, when this work was completed, Colin Middleton was twenty-seven years old. His first ever exhibition, with the short lived Ulster Unit, which included fellow Northern artist John Luke, had taken place just three years previously and in 1935 he married Maye McLain. Since leaving school Middleton had worked in the family damask business in Belfast, attending the College of Art by night and making trips, when feasible, to view exhibitions abroad such as the Van Gogh show in the Leicester Galleries in 1928. 1937 was a decidedly happy period in the artist’s life. This work with its serene northern landscape and soothing autumnal palette mirrors the artist’s mood and his fondness for his surroundings reflected in the rhythmic rolling hills interspersed with neat hedgerows and brightly painted gables. The simplification of colour and form, evidenced in the flat rendering of the buildings, was a favoured technique by the artist and was repeated in later works such as Building with Distant Spinney, 1939. Like his contemporary, John Luke RUA (1906-1975) these works have a stylised dreamlike quality. Sadly, the tranquillity as expressed in this work reflects the calm before the storm. Middleton’s personal life was upturned just two years later when his wife Maye died tragically and later, in 1941, with the onset of WorldWar II, the Northern landscape would suffer also when its peaceful countryside was severely blitzed during the conflicts. €30,000-€40,000 (£25,210-£33,610 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot5 1