Afflicted with writer's block, he turned to painting-he had drawn and painted casually from an early age-at the urging of his then-girlfriend, hawking "uglified" caricatures on the city's streets. ![]() He roamed the country Jack Kerouac-style for a year after graduation, eventually landing in New Orleans. With bohemianism at its midcentury apogee, Middleman considered becoming a writer. "But that didn't exist then they called it philosophy." "I had what now would be called a humanities degree," explains Middleman, 80, sitting in the midst of his vast, paint-spackled artist's studio at his home in Baltimore. Courses in the Romantic poets, Milton, art history, and philosophy lured him away from his previous infatuation with mathematics. After graduating from high school in three years, he entered Johns Hopkins intending to study physics but graduated three years later with a degree in philosophy. Middleman took a somewhat circuitous path to his dual careers. Meanwhile, he has served continuously on the faculty of the Maryland Institute College of Art since 1961, chairing its painting department from 1975 to 1978. His work is included in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery, and the National Academy of Design. ![]() ![]() Over the past 55 years, the celebrated artist and respected educator Raoul Middleman estimates that he has produced a staggering 20,000 paintings and drawings: landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes, figures and portraits, equestrian images, still lifes, narratives, and more than 1,000 self-portraits. Editor's note: This article was originally published in the Fall 2015 issue of_Arts & Sciences Magazine_.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |