Arthur Armstrong
Irish Landscape and Still-life Artist.
Biography and Paintings.
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Arthur Armstrong |
Arthur Armstrong RHA (1924-1996)A noted landscape artist and still-life painter, the Irish artist Arthur Armstrong was born in County Antrim, studied political science at Belfast University before switching to architecture. Afterwards he attended night classes at Belfast College of Art, meeting contemporaries like Gerard Dillon, Daniel O'Neill and George Campbell. When he took up painting seriously he focused on portraits and city scenes, followed by a period he described as "almost action-painting". Surviving in a succession of clerical jobs, combined with commercial design art, Armstrong exhibited several paintings in Belfast (1951), Dublin (1955-7), Belfast (1957). Returning to Dublin in 1962, he began showing at the RHA. He exhibited thirty five oil paintings at the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery in 1964. He won the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal at the Oireachtas Exhibition in 1968. He became an Royal Hibernian Academician in 1972 and later a member of Aosdana. |
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Arthur Armstrong's artworks have been exhibited widely in Europe and America, and reside in private and public collections across the world. Solo exhibitions have been staged in Gibraltar (1968); Madrid's Galerie Avignon (1974); David Hendriks Gallery in Dublin; the Tom Caldwell Gallery in Belfast; Gallery 22; Arts Council of Northern Ireland: Retrospective 1950-80 (1981), and Kenny's Gallery in Galway. His paintings have appeared in group exhibitions at Madrid's Kreisler Gallery, Leicester Gallery in London, and the Watergate Gallery in Washington (1972). In 1957 and 1968, he received the Arts Council/an Chomhairle Ealaíon Travelling Scholarship, and in 1973 the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Art in Context prize in 1973. A prolific painter, completing up to 300 paintings a year, in oils, watercolour and mixed media, he regarded himself first and foremost as an abstract artist. |
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More Information About Visual Arts in Ireland • For details of other artists from
Ireland, see: Irish Artists: Paintings
and Biographies.
History
of Irish Art |
