Beschreibung:

Artist: Colin Middleton RUA RHA (1910-1983) Title: Kelly's Coal Boat, Belfast Lough Signature: signed top right Medium: oil on canvas Size: 51 x 61cm (20.1 x 24in) Framed Size: 68.5 x 78.7cm (27 x 31in) Provenance: Christie's, Scotland, 27th October 1989, Lot 353 (Previously titled 'A Cargo Ship at Sea'); Private Collection Literature: John Hewitt Colin Middleton Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1976, p.11 a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Colin Middleton's father, Charles Collins Middleton, was a keen and skilful amateur painter who had a passion for boats and John Hewitt records Middleton's early memories of 'those Sunday mornings when Charles carried him down to the Belfast Docks to wander along the quays scrutinising the array of ... Read more Colin Middleton's father, Charles Collins Middleton, was a keen and skilful amateur painter who had a passion for boats and John Hewitt records Middleton's early memories of 'those Sunday mornings when Charles carried him down to the Belfast Docks to wander along the quays scrutinising the array of vessels and boarding those where he was friendly with the ships' masters'. It was in 1941, following the harrowing events of the Blitz of Belfast that spring and eight years after his father's death, that Middleton's interest in this subject matter seems to have been re-awakened. Although his earlier work had been dominated by abstraction and surrealism, and the latter had been particularly effective in shaping his response to the war and also to the death in 1939 of his first wife, Maye, a more reflective mood emerged in a series of Belfast street scenes that Middleton began in 1940. In these, he seems to have looked at the city around him and its inhabitants with a new sense of kinship and empathy. It is interesting to speculate whether the paintings of Belfast Docks and its working boats were a conscious reminder of his father. The gently impressionistic manner of painting, with short broken brushstrokes placed carefully onto primed canvas occasionally left bare, and the muted palette that typified this group of works, is demonstrated in the present painting. A number of these Belfast landscapes and seascapes were included in Middleton's 1941 solo exhibition at Belfast Museum and Art Gallery and it is possible that this is the painting Barges that was shown there. Dickon Hall, March 2020