Revision of Raoul Middleman's portfolio from Thu, 12/08/2016 - 22:29

About Raoul

Baltimore City

Raoul Middleman was born in Baltimore in 1935. He has a BA in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University, and has attended Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Skowhegan, and The Brooklyn Museum Art School. He has been teaching Painting and Drawing at The Maryland Institute College of Art since 1961. His murals of the different aspects of horseracing, done with his class at The Maryland Institute, are on permanent display at The Pimlico Racetrack in Baltimore. He was President of the National… more

View Raoul's Resume

Watercolors

Watercolor is great for travel. Watercolor in general exploit the accidental and the fortuitous. For example, the series done on wayward camping trips to Southern Utah tries to reconcile the unpredictable properties of the medium with the absolute audacity of the colors of the high desert. Seascapes reconcile rock to water to sky and icons of synchronicity.

The Canyon Climb

Watercolor on Paper, 18"x24", 2000
Desert View

Watercolor on Paper, 18"x24", 2002
Dark Encroachment

Watercolor on Paper, 18"x24", 2001
Capital Reef

Watercolor on Paper, 18"x24", 2001
Joshua

Watercolor on Paper, 18"x24", 2001
Still Sea

Watercolor on Paper, 18 x 24 in., 2014
Breakwater High Tide

Watercolor on Paper, 18 x 24 inches, 2016
Late Afternoon

Watercolor on Paper, 18 x 24 inches, 2016
Warren Point

Watercolor on Paper, 18 x 24 inches, 2016
Front Beach

Watercolor on Paper, 18 x 24 inches, 2016

Portraits and Figures

Some artists think that a likeness to the sitter is not important, so long as it resolves into a good painting. But for me likeness is tantamount. The expression of character or essence of the sitter is a most elusive abstract notion that the portraitist is trying to "capture". The painting is always going in and out of likeness. The trick is knowing where to stop it.

Grace Hartigan

Oil on Canvas, 60 x 84 inches, 1995
Uncle Sid

Oil on Canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 1986
Miss Walsh

Oil on Canvas, 48 x 36 inches, 2016
George Edel

Oil on Canvas, 40 x 70 inches, 1990
Girl with Gloves

Oil on Canvas, 40 x 28 inches, 1995
Open Jacket

Oil on Canvas, 48 x 36 inches, 2016
Sammy

Oil on Canvas, 36 x 36 inches, 1992
Abram Bibi

Oil on Canvas, 54 x 54 inches, 1996
Meghan

Oil on Canvas, 48 x 36 inches, 2016
Strawberry Blonde

Oil on Canvas, 48 x 36 inches, 2012

Cityscapes

Most people think of landscape as honeybees and flowers and the circuitry of hurtling clouds in the midst of summer splendor. But the splintery wharfs and abandoned factories along the harbor have another kind of beauty, nature transforming all that funky detritus into icons of enchantment. In the spring of 2001, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council invited me as Artist-in-Residence to the 92nd floor of The World Trade Center. The bank of windows overlooked downtown Wall Street to the bridges along the East River connecting to Brooklyn. I painted 21 paintings. Just a few months after my residency ended, the first insidious plane came through the very windows that provided my overlook.

View from the World Trade Center

Oil on Canvas, 60 x 36 inches, 2001
View from the World Trade Center 2

Oil on Canvas, 60 x 48 inches, 2001
View from Brooklyn

Oil on Paper, 30 x 40 inches, 1994
The Yellow Shovel

Oil on Paper, 30 x 40 inches, 1994
Port Covington

Oil on Canvas, 24 x 24 inches, 1994
Fairfield

Oil on Paper, 30 x 40 inches, 1994
FNC

Oil on Canvas, 30 x 40 inches, 1995
Industrial Yard

Oil on Paper, 30 x 40 inches, 1995
Abandoned Lot

Oil on Paper, 30 x 40 inches, 1994
Eastside Fog

Oil on Canvas, 48 x 48 inches, 2001

Self Portraits

The Self is not ossified in some permanent immutable casement, always the same, but rather manifests itself as fragments of an expandable continuum. Just as a circle can be described by an infinite number of tangents in the trajectory of its rotation, so can the Self. Startled by the jolt of introspection, self portraiture is all about the discovery of the multiplicity of one's being, shifting through the masks of time.

Red Collar

Oil on Canvas, 20 x 16 inches, 2015
Maroon Self Portrait

Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 inches, 2014
Studio Round Mirror

Oil on Board, 24 x 16 inches, 1996
Self Portrait Jockey Silk

Oil on Canvas, 40 x 28 inches, 2003
Self Portrait in Fedora

Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 inches, 2013
Studio Self Portrait

Oil on Canvas, 50 x 50 inches, 1983
Self Portrait on Terre Verte

Oil on Canvas, 18 x 12 inches, 2013
Self Portrait Against Studio Ceiling

Oil on Canvas, 84 x 42 inches, 1990
Self Portrait in Red Shirt

Oil on Paper, 40 x 30 inches, 1995
Self Gaze

Oil on Canvas, 20 x 16 inches, 2014

High Desert

The landscape of the West has always fascinated me since childhood, such as memories of the Saturday Western movies with Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy and later a two-year stint as a ranch-hand in Montana. The opportunity to paint the Southwest and all its monumental glory has allowed me to collate fantasy with observational verity.