Peter Midgley (né Peter Fleischmann, 1921 Berlin, Germany – 1991 London, England)
Circular Diamond, c. 1969
Folded newspaper
76.2 x 76.2 cm
Private Collection
© The Estate of Peter Midgley
During the internment of so-called 'enemy aliens' in Britain and the Commonwealth (1940-41), the 19-year-old Peter Midgley (then using his given name of Peter Fleischmann) was interned at Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man, known informally as 'the artist's camp'. There he received such a thorough art education from German refugee artists including the Dadaist Kurt Schwitters, painter Fred Uhlman and sculptors Paul Hamann and the Austrian Georg Ehrlich, that he described everything he later learned at art school as 'just a recap'. Midgley's later practice was often experimental and he worked in a variety of media including a series of at least three abstract reliefs constructed from folded newspapers in 1969 showing the legacy and influence of Schwitters, celebrated for his Merz repurposing found and discarded materials. Another version, entitled Paper Maze (1969) is in the collection of Warwick Arts Centre at the University of Warwick.
