Ruins

Details

John Armstrong, A.R.A. (1893-1973)
Ruins
signed with initials 'JA' (lower right)
tempera on panel
10½ x 10¾ in. (26.7 x 27.4 cm.)
Executed in 1938.

Provenance

with Michael Parkin Fine Art, London.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 26 June 1984, lot 379. with Agnew's, London.

Literature

Exhibition catalogue, Blood Sweat and Tears - 1940 And All That, London, Parkin Gallery, February - March 1973, no. 1, illustrated on the back cover of the catalogue.
Exhibition catalogue, An Exhibition of British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London, Redfern Gallery, February - March 1986, no. 1, illustrated on front cover.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, John Armstrong 1893-1973, February - April 1975, no. 52 : this exhibition travelled to Preston, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, June-July 1975; and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Laing Art Gallery, August 1975.
London, Parkin Gallery, Blood Sweat and Tears - 1940 And All That, February - March 1973, no. 1.
London, Arts Council of Great Britain, John Armstrong, 1975, no. 52.
London, Redfern Gallery, An Exhibition of British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, February - March 1986, no.1.
Finland, Retretti Art Centre, Surrealismi - Surrealism, May - September 1987, not numbered.
Aldeburgh, Peter Pears Gallery, Festival Exhibition, June 2006, no. 21.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

As the prospect of war became more and more imminent, Armstrong's landscapes became increasingly transformed into places of ruin and desecration. Paper peeling from walls and decay signifies the ultimate sacrifice of war, in a vivid reminder of Armstrong's experiences as an officer of the Royal Field Artillery in the First World War.

The present work laments the onset and recurrence of war, despairing at the futility of conflict, and combining several of the artist's most emotional symbolic expressions: the artist himself, in the guise of a small bowed figure on crutches, turns away from the ruin and broken door; Armstrong's next use of this despairing self-representation is in his work Veronica as Clown, (Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance) depicting the breakdown of his second marriage. The climbing horizon of a low rounded hill is also a symbol of intense importance for the artist, recalling simultaneously both the rolling downland of his blissful childhood at West Dean and also the image of Calvary.

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