Janet Middleton studied at
the Winnipeg School of Art (1941-3), at the Provincial Institute of Art
and Technology in Calgary (1943-6) with H.G. Glyde and Walter J. Phillips,
and at the Banff School of Fine Arts with Phillips, Glyde, George Pepper,
and A.Y. Jackson (a member of the Group of Seven).
In 1961-2, through a British Arts Council Bursary for the Slade
School of Art (London) she studied graphics.
During that time she also traveled and studied in France, Italy,
Japan, and the USA.
Middleton taught at the
Department of Extension, University of Alberta (1948-64), which offered
her an opportunity to travel across the Province of Alberta.
Between 1948 and 1971 she was a painting instructor at the Banff
School of Fine Arts for the summer terms.
She later lectured at the University of Guelph, Ontario.
Janet Middleton worked with
a variety of media. She
painted in watercolor and oil, worked as a muralist and with stained
glass, and she explored lithography and intaglio. Influenced by George
Weber (1907-2002), Janet utilized the printmaking media of serigraphy,
woodcut, and linocut. Her
approach to watercolor was very much based in the tradition of English
Watercolors Technique, with its use of light, transparent washes.
This style also emphasized the tradition of the topographic artists
of the expansionist period, where working d'eau
plein air served the purpose of documentation.
Her early 1943 watercolor Bow River, Banff, which
shows influences of both Glyde and Phillips, was probably painted while
sitting along the shoreline of the river, just west of the town of Banff.
She was an early core
member of the Edmonton Branch (Western) of the Canadian Society of
Painters & Etchers, along with George Weber, Edmonton (its first
president); Annora Brown, Ft. Macleod; Stanford E. Blodgett, Calgary;
Margaret Shelton, Hubalta; and James Agrell Smith, Red Deer. Her serigraphs were exhibited, along with one hundred and
twelve other entries, in The First Western Canada Print Exhibit (1956-7)
at Hart House, Toronto. Her
works were regularly included in the large juried exhibitions of the CPE. She was granted full membership with that organization in
1961.
Janet is currently living
in Banff, Alberta.
