50.8 × 38.1 cm
(20 × 15 inches)
Signed and dated lower right
No. 524
Arum Reflection is a beautifully distilled example of Armstrong's mature painting. A single arum lily and its reflection dominate the composition, transforming a familiar natural form into something strange, elegant and almost emblematic.
The flower is doubled across the surface: the dark, sculptural form above answered by its paler reflection below. Armstrong plays delicately with oppositions of light and dark, solid form and reflected image, reality and illusion. What begins as a still-life subject becomes a subtle meditation on symmetry and transformation.
Painted in 1955, the work brings the exhibition to a fitting conclusion. The natural world that had preoccupied Armstrong since the 1930s is here reduced to its essentials, yet the image retains the mystery and poetic ambiguity characteristic of his finest work.
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