Ralph Middleton
(1950 - c.2005)
The California Years
An online companion to Ralph Middleton: Paper Houses, on view in the gallery November 4 - December 5, 2020.
Shelter is thrilled to announce an exhibition of paintings by the late self-taught artist Ralph Middleton. Offering a focused presentation in the gallery of a series of paintings created in September 1988 in the Bay Area, a complementary online exhibition will dive deeper into Middleton the artist, with a look at and comparison of paintings of this series to earlier and later works.
Little is known about Ralph Middleton’s early life other than the fact he was born in, and started to paint in, Harlem, New York. Middleton’s work began to gain recognition amongst folk and outsider collectors in the 1960s and 70s and at some point during those years, he moved to the west coast, making homes out of abandoned rail stations and underneath bridges.
The consistency of color palette and materials in the series on display in the gallery suggests that someone, possibly a patron, arts program, or supporter, gifted Middleton some paints and board, which he fervently used to create wildly energetic paintings of everything from people he knew, to seemingly abstract scenes of color and line that, we may assume, reflected some of the energy within and surrounding the artist. Middleton deftly keeps each painting from feeling weighty with a subtle and effective use of white, both as negative space and peeking through brushstrokes, the latter of which show an artist confident in his hand. Painted on illustration board, the artist signed each piece and often provided an exact date and location, perhaps in a way providing a record – tangible and visible – of this particular moment in his transient life.
Middleton resided in Los Angeles in the 1990s, where he attracted attention from musicians, artists, and collectors seeking out exciting creations by unknown and under-known artists. At the time he was living under a bridge, and these predominantly young and creative collectors would visit him, delivering materials or acquiring work. Despite his precarious living situation, Middleton was known as being self-educated, with a particular interest in philosophy, film, and the arts.
Curriculum Vitae
SELECT EXHIBITION HISTORY
2010: “The collection of Dan Prince” Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA.
2003: "African American Artists in Los Angeles" sponsored by the LA Dept. of Cultural Affairs, Luckman Galleries
1994: Triangle Square “Jazz Fest” benefit for Share Our Selves, Los Angeles, CA.
1992: “Contemporary American Folk Art: The Collections of Herbert Hemphill Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Richard Sears, and Rubens Teles.” Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY.
SELECT PUBLICATIONS & PRESS
Annas, T. "Outsider artists let self-taught creativity flow." The Virginian-Pilot. August 13, 2010.
Ganahl, Jane. “The heart of homeless art.” SF Examiner: April 7, 1997.
Washburn, J. "Street Scenes : Artworks by the Homeless Find a Special Place in Charlie Colin’s Heart." Los Angeles Times: October 18, 1994.
Raynor, V. "Contemporary Folk Art From Three Collections." New York Times: February 23, 1992
Meyer, G. H., ed. Folk Artists Biographical Index. Detroit: Gale Research, in association with the Museum of American Folk Art, 1987.
Johnson, Jay and William C. Ketchum. American Folk Art of the Twentieth Century. Rizzoli: 1983.
Untitled (September 21, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
“I bought a bunch for $5 each and they were like Rothkos on canvas...Ralph sort of exemplified a lot of the artists I found. He was brilliant, prolific, but even though we saw each other maybe 150 times, he could never remember my name. He’s not a bum, but his problems prevent him from being inside society.”
-Charlie Colin, Musician, as quoted in “The heart of homeless art,” by Jane Ganahal, SF Examiner: April 7, 1997.
Untitled (1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Figures often populate Middleton’s work, sometimes stylized and sometimes more representational. Headless torsos are seen throughout the 1988 series, and groups of humans and humanoid creatures impart a feeling of community, albeit one a far cry from much of the city of San Francisco and its surrounding areas.
Untitled (September 5, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (1984)
Acrylic on illustration board, 22x16 in.
“All the categories of folk art are spoken for, but not all the artists can be categorized. Three outstanding exceptions are Barbara Falk, Ralph Middleton and Helen Salzberg, all seemingly aware of the larger art world...Mr. Middleton’s “Portrait of a Man” involves a well-painted naturalistic head combined with a bank of rectangles colored and white that could denote a body or a row of buildings. The artist, a New Yorker born and raised, paints and sells his pictures on the streets of the city.”
Untitled (September 4, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (September 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (A Guy Named Robert, August 29, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
The figures in the two paintings above are labeled with names, which could likely mean they represent people the artist knew.
But what is interesting is that both of the above works include horizontal bars visible under the transparency of the figures. Bars show up in additional works, sometimes diagonal, sometimes vertical, and these images recur in both the 1988 series and Middleton’s later work. The below image is from an undated 1990s painting in which vertical bars seem to be far more referential to incarceration. The figure in this piece appears behind the bars, but Middleton’s handling of paint and composition has also given the impression of the figure coming through them.
Untitled (c. 1990s)
Acrylic on board, 18x13.5 in.
“He says that he paints what he feels and that through his work he tries to ‘take the wrappings off of society’; he paints what he thinks is ‘really there.’”
Untitled (September 27, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (September 14, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (September 12, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
We also see animals and creatures, often almost anthropomorphized, throughout Middleton’s work, where they seem to be smiling or eerily grinning, a party to what is happening in the scene playing out. In the 1995 painting below, the creature in the top left section possibly takes the shape of a dog, horse, or other large animal, yet the grin is the same as those from almost a decade earlier.
Untitled (May 10, 1995)
Acrylic on reverse of No Parking sign, 13x10 in.
Untitled
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Oval-shaped eyes can be seen throughout Middleton’s oeuvre, yet despite their simple state these saucers hold a great depth, both emotionally and compositionally. Allowing negative space to add lightness to his works, these ocular portals invite the viewer to dive in.
“I started calling the area where he stays the neutral zone, because there’s this giant seven-foot wall that has been completely covered by graffiti. The gangs seem to have a truce there to let everybody do their art.”
Colin pointed to a painting of Middleton’s of two youths playing with guns. They have rounded, peanut-shaped heads and lost Liquid Paper eyes. One wears a look of glee while the other appears deeply befuddled by the gun in his hands.
Colin said: “Here’s gang members with guns. It’s not just a negative depiction. He lives with these people. They’re his friends; they help take care of him. He has no quarrel with them; he just sees it as being too bad, this situation where 12-year-olds have guns.
“I went down to see Ralph one time, and I saw these kids probably no older than 10. . . . They were taking huge hits from this bag filled with nail polish and glue, just completely gone, and they were messing around with guns.”
-Charlie Colin, musician. From "Artworks by the Homeless Find a Special Place in Charlie Colin’s Heart,." Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1994.
Untitled (c. 1990s)
Acrylic on newspaper, 22x13.5 in.
Untitled (September 3, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (Miss Florida) (1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Without a doubt Middleton was skilled with handling paint, and his self-taught exploration of art history is often hinted at in a willingness to take risks with his compositions. The first drawing below, dated 1969-70, is an abstracted figure whose breasts and nose ground the subject. The following two drawings from the 1988 series have far more abstract qualities than other works of Middleton, but when looked at carefully, the same components consistent in his oeuvre show up in these pieces, such as saucer-like eyes and disembodied heads and body parts.
The tension between figuration-abstraction evident in these works almost imparts a feeling of dissociation and integration, particularly when the series is viewed as a whole.
Untitled (1969-1970)
Acrylic on board, 23.5 x 17 in.
Untitled (1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (September 21, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Compare the two abstracted images above to the figurative paintings below to see how Middleton purposely used these varying techniques to build out a comprehensive series of paintings from a specific moment in his life.
Untitled (September 9, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Untitled (September 8, 1988)
Acrylic on illustration board, 20x15 in.
Unsurprisingly, Middleton’s style and unique voice developed in the decade or so that this work covers, and in this final piece, seem to converge in a fully realized oil painting. A figure is identifiable, and begs for comparison to Degas or Matisse; the artist was likely familiar with both. The simple palette allows the artist’s deftly applied brushstrokes to break up the painting’s planes, and a hint of a red necklace and red nails stands as a contrast to the rest of the piece.
Untitled (May 16, 1995)
Oil on panel, 9x7 in.