DAVID ARMSTRONG - BIOGRAPHY

As a boy in the woods and fields near his family's rock-ribbed Connecticut farm, David Armstrong developed a reverence for the earth and a desire to capture its essence in his painting. He said, "I have an overwhelming concern for the beauty the earth has lost and all that can still be preserved. Through my work I have tried to show the timeless, peaceful bounty and beauty of the earth and to express my concern for its fragility."

Armstrong chose to live the life he painted on a farm in Pennsylvania where he could be in touch with the harmony of nature and man, a harmony he depicted in his paintings. Armstrong insisted on working directly from his subjects, not only to get to know the landscape intimately but to become moved by an emotion for the place. He said, "I am not interested in painting the objects. I want to paint a mood, and a mood comes from a deep and honest emotion."

Educated at the Taft School, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Bucknell and Indiana Universities, Armstrong painted primarily in watercolors and oils. At the age of 12, Armstrong's talent was recognized by one of America's greatest artists, Eric Sloane. Throughout Sloane's long and distinguished career, he acted as Armstrong's mentor. Armstrong also had a long association with the prestigious Hammer Galleries in New York City, where he had several one-man sell-out shows and had the honor of having his work included in a four-man show with Eric Sloane, Bob Timberlake and Andrew Wyeth.

Armstrong's work portrayed the artist's own mood of "quiet stillness where fantasy and discovery of something timeless come together." He admitted that he approached his work and the world he paints "in a childlike fashion, with an eternal curiosity and the belief that no discovery is ever insignificant."