Raoul Middleman: Watercolors & Monoprints

Grimaldis Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works on paper by Raoul Middleman. With renewed inspiration and unrestrained expression, the works on view bring together the artist’s lifelong passions and closest subjects: Baltimore, burlesque and horses.

In a suite of monoprints, Middleman works quickly and directly on the inked plate by wiping and scratching away the black ground, recalling with ease and a decisive hand the horse’s gait or dancer’s heels. There is an undeniable magnetism to these works of memory. The mark-making is wild and tumultuous, containing an almost frantic rhythm of gestures. And yet with remarkable clarity, they can distill the presence of a horse turning at the curve of the racetrack. From the elevated perspective of his new 19th floor studio, Middleman continues to observe the changing cityscape in watercolor. In page after page, the crooked horizons shift with each mood and hour, as though one can see the moment inspiration strikes.

Born in Baltimore, Raoul Middleman studied at Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. He was president of the National Academy of Design in New York from 1998 to 2001, and has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 1961. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, D.C.; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; and the National Academy of Design, New York. The documentary film MIDDLEMAN, produced by Mad Queen Productions, will premiere in 2020.