John Armstrong Art

Signed with initials Tempera on hand-made paper laid on panel 6 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches Group of Figures (1945), encapsulates John Armstrong’s interest in Classical and Renaissance image...

Brown Abstract (6), Oil on Canvas Painting by John Armstrong 1893-1973, 1965 Literature/Press Andrew Lambirth, 'John Armstrong: The Complete Paintings, Catalogue Raisonne', London: ...

Still Life, Oil on Board Painting by John Armstrong, 1960 Additional information: Medium: Oil on board 11 1/4 x 15 1/8 in 28.5 x 38.5 cm Signed and dated This painting shows Armstrong's earlier career as a theatre designer, with its subjects arranged on a window sill as if actors in a play; the leaf and muntin, painted in a similar tone of green, act as a mid-ground to the autumnal trees outside the Artist's London home. Painted after Armstrong had returned to the city from Lamorna, Cornwall, as a struggling artist, models were too expensive and so he resorted to using fruits and vegetables from his local market. Showing a Cycladic vessel that appears in other works from 1957 onwards, as illustrated in Lambirth's book, including Still life with Mushrooms from 1961. The distinctive brick-like pattern of Armstrong's brushstrokes shines through here. John Armstrong was a painter of imaginative subjects, designer of film and stage sets, mural painter and book illustrator. Born in Hastings, Sussex, John Rutherford Armstrong attended St Paul's School, London, and studied law at St John's College, Oxford, before taking up art at St John's Wood School of Art (1913-14). He served in the Royal Field Artillery (1914-19) before returning to St John's Wood School for a short period after the war. His first one-man exhibition was at the Leicester Galleries in 1928, where he first met members of the Unit One group, joining them for their 1933 exhibition. It was after this that Armstrong's work began to develop a Surrealist character. Much of Armstrong's oeuvre has its foundation in classical legend, landscape, or imagery, surely understandable given his classical education and WW1 service in the Near East. Varied Greek vase forms regularly make an appearance in his work from the mid-1930s, notably in his GPO poster...