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prints by David Armstrong
Armstrong painted the life he lived on a farm in Pennsylvania, in touch with the harmony of nature and man, a harmony depicted in his paintings. Armstrong insisted on working directly from his subjects, not only to get to know the landscape intimately but to become moved by an emotion for the place. He said, "I am not interested in painting the objects. I want to paint a mood, and a mood comes from a deep and honest emotion."
Armstrong also had a long association with the prestigious Hammer Galleries in New York City, where he had several one-man sell-out shows and had the honor of having his work included in a four-man show with Eric Sloane, Bob Timberlake and Andrew Wyeth. At the early age of 32, Armstrong was honored with a 120-piece exhibition in Pennsylvania's state museum in Harrisburg. Armstrong's works are in major corporate and private collections, including a piece in the private library of former President Bush (a gift to the President from the late Dr. Armand Hammer). Armstrong's work portrayed the artist's own mood of "quiet stillness where fantasy and discovery of something timeless come together." He approached his work and the world he painted "in a childlike fashion, with an eternal curiosity and the belief that no discovery is ever insignificant."David Armstrong died in August 1998, after a lengthy battle with cancer. |
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As a boy in the woods and fields near his family's rock-ribbed Connecticut farm, David Armstrong developed a reverence for the earth and a desire to capture its essence in his painting. "I have an overwhelming
concern for the beauty the earth has lost and all that can still be preserved. Through my work
I have tried to show the timeless, peaceful bounty and beauty of the earth and to express my concern for
its fragility," he said.
Educated at the Taft School, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Bucknell and Indiana
Universities, Armstrong painted primarily in watercolors and oils. At the age of 12, Armstrong's talent was
recognized by one of America's greatest artists, Eric Sloane. Throughout Sloane's long and distinguished
career, he acted as Armstrong's friend and mentor.In 1976, David assisted Eric Sloane with the panorama mural project (75 feet, 3 story) at the National Air and Space museum, Smithsonian Institute, in Washington, D.C.