Canvassing history and other Middleman 'Obsessions'

(Towson Times) - Raoul Middleman is a prolific Baltimore artist whose energetic brushwork remains as lively as ever in his exhibit at the C. Grimaldis Gallery. "Custer's Last Stand and Other Painterly Obsessions" mostly contains recent paintings, watercolors and drawings, but it's an enormous 1967 painting that's the big star of the show.
"Custer's Last Stand" is 18 feet long and more than 11 feet high. It's so big that it can't hang flat on the gallery wall, so it's leaning at a slight angle against the wall. The subject matter and dimensions evoke those grand 19th-century history paintings so overloaded with figures that you spend a long time surveying the painterly battlefield. Continued

Photo: raoulmiddleman.com