John Armstrong
Autumn Exhibition 2026
14 October – 11 November 2026
This exhibition brings together thirteen paintings and gouaches spanning a particularly rich period of John Armstrong's career, from c.1930 to 1955. Classical myth, ruined cities, theatre, the natural world and the shadow of war continually overlap in paintings distinguished by Armstrong's extraordinary sense of colour, light and poetic invention.
Organised in collaboration with the artist's family, the exhibition includes the exceptional pair Helen and Paris, reunited after their exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery in 1938, together with Shells and Sun, Growth and Form, Harlequin, The Square and Leda.
Works in the Exhibition
Algerian Landscape (2), c.1930
One of the earliest works in the exhibition, Algerian Landscape (2) already reveals Armstrong's highly individual transformation of the visible world. Architecture, landscape, classical forms and the reclining figure are compressed into a luminous, almost dream-like composition.
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Figure and Wild Plants on a Hillside, c.1930–35
Human figure, vegetation and landscape become almost inseparable in this remarkable early painting. Its monumental, biomorphic forms reflect Armstrong's engagement with the new modernism of the 1930s while retaining a powerful sense of something ancient and elemental.
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Helen, c.1937
Exhibited with Paris at the Lefevre Gallery in 1938, Helen presents the legendary beauty of antiquity with extraordinary economy. Armstrong scratches the figure directly through the painted surface, creating an image that feels simultaneously archaic and startlingly modern.
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Paris, c.1937
The companion to Helen, Paris depicts the Trojan prince whose elopement with Helen begins the chain of events leading to the destruction of Troy. The beautifully incised figure combines classical simplicity with a distinctly modern treatment of the painted surface.
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Shells and Sun, 1943
One of Armstrong's most beautiful wartime paintings, Shells and Sun reduces the natural world to elemental forms of sun, sea, land and shell. Its spiralling structures and shimmering surface transform familiar objects into an image of organic order and regeneration.
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Growth and Form, 1944
A monumental figure rises from a landscape filled with spiralling organic forms in one of Armstrong's most imaginative wartime paintings. Made while Europe was still being destroyed, Growth and Form sets creation and regeneration against the experience of destruction.
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The Square, 1952
A deserted Mediterranean square becomes psychologically charged in one of Armstrong's most haunting urban paintings. Bright café awnings and coloured furniture contrast with deepening shadow, ruined architecture and an antique sculptural group, leaving us uncertain whether catastrophe has passed or is still to come.
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Leda, 1952
Classical mythology erupts into the modern city in this extraordinary reimagining of Leda and the Swan. The ancient story appears on an illuminated billboard above a rain-soaked street while a naked modern Leda stands below, ignored by passers-by sheltering beneath their umbrellas.
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Cosmetics, c.1952
A Roman statue survives improbably amid the remains of a ruined city while a vast painted mouth smiles from a decaying cosmetics advertisement. Armstrong brings antiquity and modern consumer culture together in an image at once beautiful, absurd and unsettling.
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The Drummer, 1953
One of a remarkable pair of gouaches addressing the absurdity of human conflict, The Drummer turns warfare into sinister theatrical spectacle. Uniforms become costumes and military ceremony approaches pantomime, while the surrounding cannon fire makes the comedy distinctly black.
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The Cannonade, 1953
Closely related to Armstrong's major Battle paintings of the early 1950s, The Cannonade presents combatants armed with toy-like wooden swords against a city erupting with gunfire. The apparent comedy masks a darker meditation on mankind's persistent appetite for conflict.
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Harlequin, 1950
Commissioned for the bar of the original Berkeley Hotel in Mayfair, this imposing Harlequin transforms the familiar figure of the Commedia dell'Arte into something more ambiguous. Beautifully dressed and dramatically illuminated, the solitary figure appears poised between spectacle and melancholy, dawn and dusk.
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Arum Reflection, 1955
In Arum Reflection, Armstrong turns a single flower and its reflection into a mysterious study of doubling, colour and form. The delicately articulated leaves and flower emerge from a richly worked surface, bringing the natural world into the dream-like language of his mature painting.
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