Edward Middleditch, 1923-1987

Edward Middleditch


1923        
Born 23 March, Chelmsford, Essex. Family moved to Nottingham mid 1920s.

1939        
Family returned to Chelmsford. Attended King Edward VI Grammar School.

1942        
Persuaded to join the army, inspite of wishing to be a conscientious objector.

1944        
Joined Middlesex Regiment. On active service in France and Germany.

1945
Severely wounded. Awarded Military Cross and invalided home. Sent to Burma.

1946        
After the surrender of Japan, sent to West Africa during Independence struggles.

1947        
Again invalided home, this time having caught malaria. Married Jean Kathleen Whitehouse.

1948        
Attended Regent Street Polytechnic.

1949        
Attended Royal College of Art until 1952 on an ex-serviceman's grant.
Contemporaries included Malcolm Hughes, Derrick Greaves and Jack Smith.
Teachers included John Minton, Ruskin Spear and Carel Weight.

1950
Visited Stuttgart to attend an international student conference. The comparison between German affluence and British austerity emphasised the futility of war.

1954        
Part-time teaching appointment, Bath Academy, Corsham.
Second prizewinner in the `Daily Express Young Artists Exhibition' with Chicken in a Flooded Stream. (First prize won by Lucian Freud's Hotel Room).
Commissioned to produce a print for Lyons Tearooms.
Taught at Langford Grove near Barcombe Mills, Sussex.

1955        
Drew in Blanes on the Costa Brava.
Middleditch and Greaves families moved to Ivy House, Buckinghamshire.

1956        
Painted a mural in collaboration with Derrick Greaves on the theme of the four seasons for the library of Nuffield College, Oxford.
Visited Spain.

1956-60        
Part-time teaching, St Martin's School of Art.

1956-63        
Part-time teaching, Chelsea School of Art.

1960        
Taught at Regent Street Polytechnic.
Visited Spain, stayed for six months near Ronda in Andalusia.

1961        
Taught at Cambridge School of Art and St Martin's School of Art.

1962         
Moved to the Old School House, Boxford, Suffolk.
Awarded Gulbenkian Foundation Scholarship.

1963
Daughter Emily born.

1964
Appointed part-time Head of Department of Fine Art at Norwich School of Art

1968        
Elected Associate Member of the Royal Academy.

1973         
Elected Member of the Royal Academy.

1973-76
Visited Dorset each year to make further sea studies.

1974
Position at Norwich School of Art made into a full-time appointment and the C.N.A.A. granted the course B.A.(Hons) status.

1975-79         
Produced a large number of silkscreen prints.        

1980        
Death of his wife Jean.

1984         
Retired as Head of Fine Art at Norwich School of Art
Elected Keeper of the Royal Academy, in charge of the Schools.

1985
A selector of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

1986        
Ill health forced him to resign as Keeper of the Royal Academy.

1987        
Died 29 July in Chelmsford.


Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions


1950
Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, London

1951        
Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries

1952
Young Painters, ICA, London (including Andrews, Braithwaite, Cohen, Daniels, Hamilton, Reynolds and Willing)

Young Contemporaries, R.B.A Galleries, London

Looking Forward, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (curated by John Berger) (including de Francia, Greaves, Lowry, Minton, Moynihan, Spear and Weight), touring exhibition

1953
Congrès pour la Liberté de la Culture, Paris and Rome

1954        
Some Rising Painters, Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London (with Fussell, Neve, Roberts and Whishaw)
        
1955        
British Painting, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

Giovani Pittori, Gallerie Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, (toured to Paris under the auspices of the Congrès pour la Liberté de la Culture)

Daily Express Young Artist’s Exhibition, New Burlington Galleries, London
T
he Artist’s View of an Industry: Recent Drawings and Paintings of the Oil Industry, Arts Council of Great Britain, (with Andrews, Coker and Greaves)

Contemporary English Painting and Sculpture, Leeds

Heffer Gallery, Cambridge (with Bratby, Greaves and Smith)

Lithographs and Drawings, sponsored by Lyons, The Tea Centre, London

1956
Quatro Giovani Pittori Inglesi, Venice Biennale, Venice (with Bratby, Greaves and Smith)

Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, London

Looking Forward, South London Art Gallery, London, (with Baines, Coker and Greaves)

The Pittsburgh International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh
        
1957        
Six Young Painters, Arts Council of Great Britain (including Fry, Hamilton Fraser, Kinley, Smith and Wishart)

British Painting 1950 - 57, Arts Council of Great Britain

Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, London

1958        
The Pittsburgh International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh

1959        
The Graven Image, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

16 Paintings by 16 Painters: Aspects of Realism, AIA Gallery

British Painting 1700-1960, The British Council, Moscow

Young British Painters, Austria

1960        
Critic’s Selection, Tooth's Gallery, London

1961
British Painting: Today & Yesterday, Tooth's Gallery, London

1966        
Painters in East Anglia, Arts Council of Great Britain, touring exhibition

British Painting 50-57, Arts Council of Great Britain

Edward Middleditch and Arnold Van Praag, Roland, Browse & Delbanco, London

1966-84
Summer Exhibition, The Royal Academy, London

1967        
Drawing towards Painting, Arts Council of Great Britain, touring exhibition

1968        
Helen Lessore and the Beaux Arts Gallery, Marlborough Fine Art, London

1969        
The English Landscape Tradition in the 20th Century, Camden Arts Centre, London

1970        
Works on Paper, Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford

1972        
Fischer Fine Art, London

2^nd Ellingham Mill exhibition of paintings and sculpture 1972, Ellingham Mill, Suffolk

1973        
Landscape Painting, Serpentine Gallery, London

1974        
British Painting '74, Hayward Gallery, London.

1975
The Wavendon Season 1975, The City Gallery, Wavendon (with Greaves and Jason Monet)

1977        
British Painting 1952 - 1977, The Royal Academy, London

1978        
Flowers; Images by contemporary artists, Welsh Arts Council

1981
Books and folios: Screenprints by Derrick Greaves, Robert Medley and Edward Middleditch, Arts Council of Great Britain, touring exhibition

1983
British Landscape, Hayward Gallery, London

1984        
The Forgotten Fifties, Sheffield City Art Galleries, touring exhibition (toured to Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, Castle Museum, Norwich, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry and Camden Arts Centre, London)

1985        
Rocks and Flesh, Norwich School of Art Gallery, touring exhibition (with Auerbach, Bomberg, Hockney, Moore, Nash, Oxlade, Piper, Ruskin and Sutherland)

1987        
A Paradise Lost, Barbican Art Gallery, London

Exhibition Road: Painters at the Royal College of Art, Royal College of Art, London

1994
Kitchen Sink and Other Drawings of the Fifties, Julian Hartnoll and Mayor Gallery, London

2002
Transition: The London Art Scene in the Fifties, Barbican Art Gallery, London

2003
A Century of Drawings, James Hyman Fine Art, London

School of the Kitchen Sink, Mayor Gallery, London

2005        
Modern Masters, Ava Gallery, Bagnor, Northern Ireland

2006
Edward Middleditch. Water and Light, James Hyman Fine Art, London

2008
Edward Middleditch. Sea and Sky, James Hyman Gallery, London


Selected Collections


Aberdeen City Art Gallery
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Arts Council of Great Britain
Carlisle Art Gallery
Chrysler Art Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts
Contemporary Art Society, London
Dudley Museum and Art Gallery
Eastern Arts Association
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
Leicester County Education Committee
Manchester City Art Gallery
Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia
Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Norwich Museum and Art Gallery
Nottingham Museum and Art Gallery
Nuffield College, Oxford
Royal College of Art, London
Tate Gallery, London
University of Essex, Essex
Victoria and Albert Museum, London


Selected Publications


Books and folios: Screenprints by Derrick Greaves, Robert Medley and Edward Middleditch, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1981.

Hyman, J., Edward Middleditch: Water & Light, James Hyman Gallery, 2006.

Landscape: Paintings by Norman Adams, Adrian Berg, John Hubbard, Edward Middleditch, Serpentine Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1974.

Lessore, H., Edward Middleditch, South Bank Centre, 1987.

Middleditch, E., Edward Middleditch, Beaux Arts Gallery, 1962.

Morris, L., Edward Middleditch: The South Bank Centre 1987-88, South Bank Centre, 1988.

Artist Statement
Edward Middleditch (1923-1987) established himself in the mid 1950s as one of the most powerful young painters and draughtsmen in Britain. Initially associated with the kitchen sink painters - John Bratby, Derrick Greaves and Jack Smith - he devoted himself chiefly to natural themes. His work over the following decades concentrated principally on the elements, from the weight of a massive hillside to the lightness of sun dancing on water or darting through foliage. It became increasingly abstract and stylised, inspired by kilims and Persian carpets, and even used stencilling to create a patterned, decorative response to nature.

The Estate of Edward Middleditch is represented by James Hyman Gallery.

Bibliography
Selected Literature


Douglas Cooper, ‘Foreword’, Edward Middleditch, Beaux Arts Gallery, London, 1958

Margaret Garlake, New Art New World: British Art in Postwar Society, New Haven and London, 1998

Albert Garrett, The New Realism in English Art, The Studio, 1954

Martin Harrison, Transition: The London Art Scene in the Fifties, London, 2002

Paul Huxley (ed.), Exhibition Road: Painters at the Royal College of Art, London, 1988

James Hyman, The Battle for Realism, London and New Haven, 2001

Helen Lessore, ‘The Work of Edward Middleditch’, Edward Middleditch, London, 1987

John Minton, ‘Three Young Contemporaries’ (Derrick Greaves, Edward Middleditch and Jack Smith), Ark 13, 1955

Lynda Morris, ‘Edward Middlelditch’, Edward Middleditch: The South Bank Centre, London, 1987

Charlotte Parry-Crooke (ed.), Contemporary British Artists, New York, 1979