John Armstrong

Biography

The gallery regularly handles, acquires and advises on works by John Armstrong. For more information or the availability of work, please contact the gallery.

John Armstrong (1893 - 1973)

 

John Armstrong was born in 1893 in Hastings. He studied at St. John’s College, Oxford, 1912-13, and then at St. John’s Wood School of Art 1913-14. During the war he served in the Royal Field Artillery 1914-19, before briefly returning to St. John’s Wood School. He began his professional career as a theatre designer in London, gaining important patrons including Samuel and Elizabeth Courtauld, who commissioned Armstrong to decorate a room in their Portman Square home.

 

Atmstrong's first solo exhibition was at the Leicester Galleries in 1928. In 1933 he joined Unit One alongside Ben Nicholson, Paul Nash, Edward Burra, Henry Moore, Edward Wadsworth, John Bigge and Barbara Hepworth, with whom he exhibited at the Unit One exhibition. From the early 1930s onwards his work became Surrealist in style – uncanny, romantically dream-like and heavily imbued with symbolism. Armstrong died in 1973.

 

John Armstrong's work is held in numerous international public collections including the Tate, the Imperial War Museum, and the National Galleries of Scotland. 

 

Works
  • John Armstrong, Funeral of a Lady , 1937 c.
    Funeral of a Lady , 1937 c.
  • John Armstrong, Feathers and Leaf, 1947
    Feathers and Leaf, 1947
  • John Armstrong, The Passion of the Inanimate, 1947
    The Passion of the Inanimate, 1947
  • John Armstrong, On the Promenade, 1947
    On the Promenade, 1947
  • John Armstrong, Leaf Forms, 1947
    Leaf Forms, 1947
  • John Armstrong, Figure in Contemplation, 1945
    Figure in Contemplation, 1945
  • John Armstrong, Madonna, 1945
    Madonna, 1945
  • John Armstrong, The Vision of St Teresa, 1953
    The Vision of St Teresa, 1953
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