Janet — Holly — Middleton
Janet Middleton was born in Vernon in 1922. She studied at the Winnipeg School of Art (1941-3), at the Provincial Institute of Art and Technology in Calgary (1943-6) with Henry Glyde and Walter J. Phillips, and at the Banff School of Fine Arts with Phillips, Glyde, George Pepper, and A.Y. Jackson.
In 1961-62, 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). At some point in 1962/63 she changed her first name to Holly.
Between 1948 and 1971 she was a painting instructor at the Banff School of Fine Arts for the summer terms. Janet Middleton painted in watercolour and oil, worked as a muralist and with stained glass, and she explored lithography and intaglio. Influenced by George Weber (1907-2002), her printmaking utilized serigraphy, woodcut, and linocut. Her approach to watercolour was very much based in the tradition of English Watercolours Technique, with its use of light, transparent washes.
4th Meridian in Naramata has a framed silkscreen available. “Canada Geese” Janet Middleton 1962
She was highly influenced by the tradition of the topographic artists of the expansionist period, working en plein air. She was an early core member of the Edmonton Branch 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.
She exhibited in the B.C. Artists annual exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery in the 1940's and from 1951-53. She lived in Vernon during this time. For one year only, 1946, she exhibited as Janet Blench. Her serigraphs were exhibited, along with 112 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.
She died in Banff in 2018. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Vernon, Penticton and Kelowna Art Galleries, the University of Victoria, the Banff Centre, the Province of Alberta, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Nickel Art Gallery (University of Alberta), the Art Gallery of Alberta and the National Gallery of Canada.
Watercolour, signed lower right, Frame 15" x 19", Image 8" x 11.5". This watercolour is in the June 2026 4th Meridian online auction. The signature is consistent with her signature before 1962, when she changed her first name to Holly.