James Hyman Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition of major paintings and works on paper by Edward Middleditch. Entitled Edward Middleditch. Sea and Sky, this exhibition is a complement to our acclaimed exhibition, Edward Middleditch. Water and Light, staged in 2006.
One of the leading Modern British Artists of the last fifty years, Edward Middleditch first gained prominence in the mid 1950s as a `kitchen-sink' painter, along with John Bratby, Derrick Greaves and Jack Smith. Although celebrated for their bold, matter of fact presentation of prosaic subjects that were often urban and domestic, Middleditch was at heart a painter of the rural landscape and of nature, which he increasingly abstracted and stylized.
Edward Middleditch. Sea and Sky includes previously unseen works and focuses on the artist's seascapes, often based on the coast of Suffolk, as well as pictures of clouds and waves. The exhibition includes major paintings, large and small drawings and a selection of little known prints. These demonstrate the way that as time went on Middleditch freed himself from the landscape motif in front of him, so that specifics of time and place give way to more abstract pictures that are general and allusive, poetic and reflective.
