Important Irish Art
,
wednesday 26th March 2014 at 6pm
11
3
Arthur Armstrong RHA (1924-1996)
Figures in a Brown Landscape
Oil on board, 76 x 61cm (30 x 24”)
Provenance: Viola, Duchess of Westminster, Ely Lodge,
Lough Erne, Co. Fermanagh
Exhibited:
Arthur Armstrong Exhibition,
Tom Caldwell
Gallery, Belfast, Sept-Oct 1970, Cat. No. 13,
organised in association with the Hendriks
Gallery, Dublin (label verso)
Arthur Armstrong was largely self-taught and a superb natural
draughtsman. A life-long devotion to Braque accounted for
an increasing abstraction in his work during the 1940s and
‘50s. He was inspired by the west of Ireland landscape and in
particular Connemara and this saw a return to pure landscape
painting during this period. Formerly happy as a figurative
painter, Armstrong had strayed away from figures in his
work. The early ‘70s saw their slow return and one can see
their successful re-employment here. Their scale shows the
artist breaking new ground, offering ideas on human existence.
This is one of several works on this theme which were carried
out in various mediums including mixed media with plaster.
In the present work Armstrong’s figures seem consumed by
the landscape, similarly in another work entitled “Figures in
a Landscape” which was included in the same exhibition and
sold in these rooms 28th September 2005 (Lot 7).
€3,000 - 5,000
