Colin Middleton, R.H.A. 1910-1983

Born in Belfast and brought up in a suburb at the foot of Cavehill, Middleton built up an acute knowledge of his home city both in terms of its unique topography as well as the people that lived within it.  Executed in 1940, the present work is a rare early example of the artist’s vision of his own city and also demonstrates the lyrical impressionistic handling he had developed in the previous decade alongside his more well-known surrealist style.  The work gains an added poignancy in light of the fact that Middleton’s wife, Maye MacLain, who he had married in 1935, died the previous year.  Moreover, the work was also executed the year after the outbreak of the Second World War during which Belfast was to become the target of intense bombing with widespread damage.

The present focus on the Belfast allotments, most likely those on Annadale Embankment in the South of the city, provides a tranquil counter-point to these events.  The two flat-capped gentlemen go about their everyday work oblivious to the action in other parts of the world and their conscientiousness is apparent in the neat rows of vegetables and well kept bushes in the foreground.  The interplay between the vertical and horizontal rows also reflects Middleton’s sense of design and his early training as a linen damask designer.  He had studied at Belfast Academy and attended evening and Saturday morning art classes of the Belfast College of Art, however, when his father suffered a stroke in 1927, he joined the family firm as apprentice (see lot 138).

In contrast to the darker palette of Allotments on Annadale Embankment, Belfast (fig.1, Private Collection) executed a year later in 1941, the fresh, bright tones of the present work reflect the artist’s optimism in the face of both personal and universal tragedy at the time.