John Middleton (Norfolk artist)

John Middleton
Portrait of John Middleton (undated), British Museum
Born	9 January 1827 Norwich
Died	11 November 1856 Norwich
Nationality	English
Known for	Landscape painting
Movement	Norwich School of painters

John Middleton (9 January 1827– 11 November 1856) was an English artist, etcher and photographer, known for his accomplished work as a painter of watercolours. He was the last important member of the Norwich School of painters.

Middleton's father was a Norwich glass stainer and his mother painted plants and occasionally exhibited her work with the Norwich Society of Artists. He was educated in Norwich and studied art under John Berney Crome and Henry Bright. He was the devoted young companion and pupil of Thomas Lound. Middleton’s paintings were exhibited before he was twenty, and he went on to exhibit at both the Royal Academy and the British Institution. A group of accomplished etchings were published as Nine Etchings by John Middleton, c.1852.

Middleton died of tuberculosis at his family home in Norwich in 1856, aged 29. The art historian Josephine Walpole has described his early death as "the supreme tragedy for the Norwich School". Art historians have long admired the freshness and modern approach of his watercolours of the Norfolk countryside, and regretted his death at such a young age.

Life

A Fine Day in Hellesdon (undated), Norfolk Museums Collections

John Middleton was born on 9 January 1827 in Norwich in the English county of Norfolk. Parish records show that he was baptised at St Stephen's Church, Norwich, on 14 January by his parents John and Ann Middleton. His father John was a glass stainer who also undertook plumbing and painting work and who studied and collected ferns in his spare time. His mother was a painter of plants whose talents were exhibited with the Norwich Society.

Middleton was educated at Norwich Grammar School. He studied under John Berney Crome, one of the artistic sons of John Crome, and with Henry Bright, whom he visited in London in 1847. Bright so influenced Middleton that it often difficult to distinguish between the two artists. Middleton was a precocious artist, exhibiting before he was twenty. He became friends with Bright and was the devoted young companion of Thomas Lound, who taught him to paint in water colours and who bought many of his paintings.

In 1849, following the death of his father, Middleton moved back to St. Stephen's Street in the centre of Norwich to care for his mother and to assist with the running of the family business. In 1850 they both moved to Surrey Street, a short distance away.

Artistic life and early death

A Landscape with a Horseman (c. 1850). Yale Center for British Art

Middleton exhibited in London from 1847 to 1855: showing fourteen pictures at the Royal Academy and fifteen works at the British Institution. He painted in oils as well as watercolours, and produced etchings, some of which were published separately as Nine Etchings by John Middleton, c.1852. Writing in 1905, William Dickes described Middleton as a painstaking and energetic artist.

During much of life Middleton suffered from poor health. He contracted tuberculosis and became gradually less capable of working outdoors as the illness advanced. He died at his home in Surrey Street in 1856, aged only 29. When his death was announced in the local Norfolk press, it was noted that he "painted nature just as he found her in the quiet sequestered nooks which abound in this county, and many a spot, otherwise of little note, will live long on the canvas touched by Middleton’s hand".

John Middleton has generally thought of by both his contemporaries and by art historians as a highly talented water-colourist. The author Josephine Walpole describes his death as "the supreme tragedy for the Norwich School", comparing his talents as a water colourist as being equal to those of John Sell Cotman and John Thirtle, and in his biography of John Middleton, Robert Brall describes the artist's talent as "precocious" and his style as "distinctive, fresh and modern".

According to Andrew Hemingway, Middleton's death in 1856 marked a decline in the quality of painting produced in the region, and he was the last significant water-colourist to be based in East Anglia.

Photographic work

Like his friend Thomas Lound, Middleton was a keen amateur photographer, who worked in a medium that was still in its infancy. Norwich's photographic community, centered around Thomas Damant Eaton (c.1799–1871), was particularly active during the 1850s. Middleton used waxed paper negatives to produce images of the Norfolk countryside. Few are known to have survived and it is not known if he displayed his photographs in any major exhibition.

Bibliography

• Brall, Robert (2016). John Middleton and the Norwich School. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 3rd edition. ISBN 1532904010.
• Cundell, H.M. (1920). The Norwich School. London: Geoffrey Holme Ltd.
• Dickes, William Frederick (1905). The Norwich school of painting: being a full account of the Norwich exhibitions, the lives of the painters, the lists of their respecitve exhibits and descriptions of the pictures. Norwich: Jarrold & Sons Ltd.
• Graves, Algernon (1895). A dictionary of artists who have exhibited works in the principal London exhibitions from 1760 to 1893. London: H. Graves.
• Hemingway, Andrew (2017). Landscape between Ideology and the Aesthetic: Marxist Essays on British Art and Art Theory 1750-1850. Leiden: Brill.
• Taylor, Roger (2007). Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-1-58839-225-1.
• Walpole, Josephine (1997). Art and Artists of the Norwich School. Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-261-5.

External links

• Works by John Middleton in the Norfolk Museums Collections
• Early Norfolk Photographs 1840 - 1860 John Middleton
• John Middleton - Suffolk Artists website
• Works by John Middleton in the British Museum