Derek Middleton England, 1917-1983

British artist Derek Middleton (1917-1983) was born in Shangai and educated in England and Munich prior to World War II. He is known for his abstract compositions and notably exhibited in the ‘Metavisual Tachiste Abstract’ in The Redfern Gallery in London, 1957; a pivotal moment in the history of modern British Art, Middleton was placed amongst many of the leading British abstract artists of the day including Gillian Ayres, Francis Bacon and Alan Davie, with the chosen collection of artworks capturing the diversity and complexity of abstraction in postwar Britain. 

‘Derek Middleton transmutes the world about him into one of his own making. It is a world of luminous colour, of limpid power, and unplumbed depths of light and darkness.’ notes the New Vision catalogue, marking Middleton as an artist of great virtuosity.