Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1 MARCH 2023

38 24 COLIN MIDDLETON RHA RUA (1910-1983) Striped Figure Oil on board, 91 x 91cm (36 x 36”) Signed and dated August (19)71; Signed, inscribed and dated 1971 verso € 20,000 - 30,000 The single female figure is a recurring image with- in Colin Middleton’s work and the main archetype amongst the range of enduring symbols that populate all periods of his work and demonstrate his consisten- cy and seriousness of intent. Often these single figures carry with them some sug- gestion of narrative through their environment, activity or title, but in the 1960s Middleton adopts an increas- ingly analytical and detached aspect in much of his painting as a more formal abstraction becomes dom- inant, which continues until the early 1970s in works such as Striped Figure . Middleton’s association with the architect Noel Camp- bell, who commissioned him to produce mosaics and murals for various new buildings in the late 1950s, was perhaps a catalyst for Middleton to re-examine how he could integrate design within his painting. In 1947, the year he gave up his career as a damask designer, he described in a latter to John Hewitt how he perceived design and painting as separate aspects of his crea- tive identity but by the late 1960s Middleton seems to have found a way to integrate elements of design into his painting, originally exploring a more abstract lan- guage based on a simplification and flattening of form and perspective, repetition of shapes and a non-imita- tive use of colour. By the 1970s these figures had become more descrip- tive, while still highly abstracted, more playful and at times more sexualised in their treatment. Striped Fig- ure , completed in 1971, is typically hieratic and con- centrated on the figure. It uses stripes and broken up, dotted passages across the composition. The figure is treated ambitiously, creating a sense of volume and tension by extrapolating and then overlaying various simplified elements of the body, which are defined in opposing stripes and colours. Formally, it is also close- ly related to the chair, whose dark leg relates to the background of the painting as well as the dark verti- cal of the figure’s hair, recalling the manner in which Middleton would make structural and thematic con- nections between the female archetype and the land- scape in many works. Dickon Hall, January 2023