Raoul Middleman is a well-known and prolific Baltimore painter. His works are collected by some of the most famous museums in the United States. He taught at the Maryland College of Art for decades. He died around midnight on Friday. . A native of Baltimore and a long-term resident of Mount Vernon is 86 years old.

Ben Midman said on Saturday that his father "passed away very peacefully." He was not sure of the cause of death, but said his father had been battling pancreatic cancer for the past few months.

"He has a good life," Ben Midman said. "He lived longer than he expected, and he enjoyed it."

The elder Mr. Middleman is widely regarded as one of Baltimore's most important contemporary artists. He joined MICA as a teacher in 1961 and has shaped several generations of students during his nearly six years of teaching. Mr. Midman is a passionate and energetic artist who has created thousands of paintings throughout his life.

"He is great. It's fun to hang out with him," his son said. "He is very focused on painting. That is his life, really; it revolves around that. He will paint every day of his life until the end... He has to do what he likes to do."

Mr. Middleman was born in Baltimore on April 3, 1935, and grew up near Ashburton, and was raised by his father Paul Middleman (an engineer and later salesman) and his mother Elizabeth Middleman Growing up, he was a housewife. Mr. Middleman graduated from Baltimore Institute of Technology and enlisted in the army in 1957.

According to an article in the Baltimore Sun on the 2015 exhibition, he developed a keen interest in horses at a young age, and spent a lot of time at Pimlico Racecourse, even from Johns Hopkins University in the 1950s. After earning his degree, he briefly worked as a cowboy for Mr. Midman's self-portrait at MICA. Later, he painted a large mural with his students at the racecourse.

With fees paid by the GI Act, Mr. Middleman attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Skowhegan, and Brooklyn Museum Art Institute before returning to Baltimore. He was hired shortly after arriving at MICA and continued to teach for nearly 60 years before retiring in recent years.

In an interview with Dan Rodricks of The Sun in 2020, Mr. Midman referred to himself and his energetic and even crazy drawing style as "impatient" and "impatient". Practitioners. The New York Times once referred to his style as "expressionistic roughness, suggesting a rather Whitman personality."

He told Mr. Rodericks that during the pandemic, he painted in his 19th-floor home studio for several months and did not allow him to see the view of Baltimore from the window until it was boring.

"The skies in Baltimore are great. Summer storms, lightning, sunsets," Mr. Midman said. "There are always surprises, and when you paint, there is always a discovery. Your identity is always changing, naturally also constantly changing, tangential changes, forming a prism of different opinions."

Mr. Middleman met his wife Ruth Middleman (nee Channing) in Paris in 1970. He was a painter and printmaker. He was on vacation at the time, and she was doing odd jobs in the second iteration of the Beat Hotel. Named for its popularity among beat poets.

Ruth recalled that when he came to Paris, he "only brought the clothes on which he stood up" and "two huge paint suitcases." On the night of the first date, she took his clothes to the laundry to wash them.

"He lives by painting," said Ms. Midman, who mentioned Ruth Channing in her work. "He likes painting, he experiences things through painting."

A year later, Mr. Middleman moved back to Baltimore with Ms. Middleman, and they got married. Their home on Calvert Street (purchased for $1 in the Dollar House Plan) is full of life. Mr. Midman’s studio brought the models, and they had dinner with their family after posing for a day. Their children earn allowances by wearing costumes and posing for beautiful paintings.

"He inspired the way I look at things," she said. "I used to have a traditional view of beauty... and then he showed me that Baltimore is very beautiful."

Fred Lazarus IV, who was the chairman of MICA from 1978 to 2014, said that Mr. Midman's passion for painting is also reflected in his teaching. Mr. Lazarus recalled that he had visited Delaware Water Gap many times, where Mr. Middleman started an art project. Students watched Mr. Middleman stay up late into the night eagerly discussing work with young artists.

Mr. Lazarus said that Mr. Midman was a philosophy student, and he “takes a broad humanist approach to painting, which is really great.” As everyone knows, he will quote poets and philosophers. By quoting historians and past painters from overhead, Mr. Midman’s several profiles describe his idea of ​​portraying himself with the same energy and urgency as painting.

"He is amazing, a real character and a great person," Mr. Lazarus said. "I like him incredibly."

Mr. Midman's work is "a continuation of this exorcism, this need to express everything he faces," said Ray Allen, the former dean of MICA and vice president of academic affairs, who met with Mr. Midman in 1971.

"I think this is a kind of spirit he instilled in his students: a sense of freedom, a sense of directness," he said. "That's a rare commodity."

Gary Vikan, the former director of the Walters Art Museum, first met Midman in 1995 when he posed for a photo shortly after being appointed to the position. Mr. Midman worked in an overcrowded studio in the untimely heat of October—wiping off the paint on his pants, using a pipe to smoke—Mr. Vikan said the intensity of his art was obvious.

"Raoul is very talented in making powerful images, he just keeps going on," said Mr. Vikan, who noticed Mr. Midman's extraordinary work. "Whether anyone sees or buys them, who cares? He is just expressing himself-at least that's what I understand. He is just an amazing person. We have lost a very special person."

James "Bath" Cusack, owner of the Senator Theater and Charles Theater, said that Mr. Midman's death was "a major loss for the city and the art world."

The two met in the 1970s, when Mr. Cusack's construction company was in its infancy, and he was hired to renovate Middlemans' urban home. They stay in touch throughout their lives and have regular lunch dates.

"He is very non-critical of people," Mr. Cusack said. "Just a great friend and a great person."

In addition to his wife and son Ben, who is also Baltimore, Mr. Middleman has two other children, Nathaniel Middleman of Baltimore and Rafael Middleman of Ventura, California, and five grandchildren. .