53 × 38 cm
(20 ⅞ × 15 inches)
Signed with initials lower right
No. 178
Helen and its companion Paris form an exceptional pair, painted around 1937 and exhibited together at the Lefevre Gallery in December 1938. Reunited in the present exhibition, they depict the legendary lovers whose story stands at the beginning of the chain of events leading to the destruction of Troy.
Armstrong presents Helen with extraordinary economy. The figure is simplified almost to the point of archaism, yet the delicate drawing is incised directly through the painted surface. Against the roughened ground the pale lines acquire an extraordinary clarity, making the image appear simultaneously ancient and strikingly modern.
Helen has a particularly monumental presence. Celebrated in antiquity as the most beautiful woman in the world, she becomes here less an individual portrait than an archetype of classical beauty. Armstrong renders her with an almost naïve simplicity, bringing together classical myth and the experimental language of modern painting with remarkable assurance.
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