Sam Middleton
1927–2015
Introduction
Sam Middleton (April 2, 1927 – July 19, 2015) was an American mixed-media artist from New York City. He travelled all over the world with the US Merchant Marine, lived in Mexico and Sweden and eventually settled down in the Netherlands, where he "was part of the considerable contingency of expatriate African American artists". Living in Holland from 1961, he established himself as one of The Netherlands' premier artists. His work is part of the Whitney Museum permanent collection, which included him in its 1962 exhibition 40 Artists Under 40 and was included in the 2015 inaugural exhibition for the museum's new building on the High Line.
Middleton was born in New York City and grew up in the Harlem neighborhood of the city. Known for his personal style, Middleton liked to use abstract expressionism in his work, basing his color, lines, and compositions around sound and harmony. Middleton specialized in working with collage.
Wikidata identifier
Q23071174
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed July 6, 2025.
Roles
Artist, collagist, graphic artist, lithographer, manufacturer, painter, pen draftsman
ULAN identifier
500163867
Names
Sam Middleton, Samuel Matthew Middleton
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed July 6, 2025.
