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30
Jul 2024
Tributes paid to ‘godfather of Harrogate art scene’
Tributes have been paid to John Middleton, one of the most influential figures on the Harrogate art scene for 50 years.
Born in Sheffield in 1940, John lived briefly in Leeds before moving to Harrogate in 1967.
He lived and worked in a central Harrogate studio continuously until his death at the end of last month, aged 84.
During the 1960s and 70s, John’s work was exhibited at The Mayor Gallery and The Nicholas Treadwell Gallery in London, and his paintings are held in private collections in the UK, Europe and the US.
His brother Paul Middleton was a member of Harrogate rock royalty — the classic 1970s band Wally, alongside Roy Webber.
During this time John was widely regarded as ‘the godfather of the Harrogate art scene’, according to David McTague, of RedHouse Originals Gallery in Harrogate.
John became increasingly reclusive from the 1980s but continued to exhibit at RedHouse from 2014, with collectors from the Yorkshire area and beyond viewing and purchasing his paintings.
He predominantly worked in watercolour and gouache, creating abstract dreamscapes that “navigated the dividing line between the figurative and the abstract”, according to David, who added:
He withdrew from publicly exhibiting in the early 1980s yet remained in a state of constant creation, producing works of great beauty, depth and integrity.
John once said:
I drew an envelope and its abstract contents. From that moment on I felt genetically and emotionally in touch with the cave painter; down in the dark, inaccessible recesses of the earth and the passage of art from his time to mine.
A collection of John’s final paintings called Pure Abstraction will go on display at the gallery in August as a tribute to the artist. The exhibition has been curated in partnership with the artist’s family.
John Middleton portrait courtesy of Natasha Rae Audsley
Family tribute
John Middleton’s family issued a statement saying he learned the art of watercolour himself, and his work transformed when he experimented with LSD in the 1970s and discovered abstract painting.
He has often said that his work can be looked upon in two very distinct ways or categories. The physical and the metaphysical, or the conscious and the subconscious. His figurative work is very much of the physical world, the detail to capture something the eye sees, the exactness of a single line in his work reflects this while studying one of his models. The fluidity of the figure. An art in itself. However, it is when he gets into the metaphysical that things start to turn interesting.
He has often been regarded as something not too dissimilar to an automatic writer in this respect. The painting of subconscious thought, pictures of the mind if you will. It is only at the point of finishing a painting that John knows or understands its meaning or purpose, until that point it is all about the journey, a journey of the discovery of the mind, put onto paper using paint to learn something from the experience.
John has had many customers who have bought a painting without knowing why they had to buy it, but buy it they must. Many have said the painting took them on a journey they had to take, or that there was something in the painting or about it that was deeply meaningful for them, and this encapsulates abstract painting. John often says it’s pointless asking him what the painting is all about because its abstractness means something different to whoever looks upon it. This is the aim of abstract work, to make you think, to look at the painting to derive meaning or purpose.
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