Beauty never was a dirty word to David Armstrong. Untroubled by a puritan fear of sensuality and the follies of any kind of zeitgeist, he has pursued his twin vision of urban romance and bucolic serenity. Armstrong’s images present his landscapes, interiors, and cityscapes, wistful and evocative images that discreetly suggest stories of love and loss, and the solitary pleasures of a flaneur adrift on urban streets and rural roads.
“It's a large part of what I am, and the work is, of course, an expression of that, my identity. You might say, it is the reverence I have for beauty. More importantly, the belief I have in the capability of a work of art to resonate, that it can reveal more, if you look at it with more contemplation, rather than the reverse. And this is possible exactly because there is content beneath the surface and aside from the subject matter. And that content is emotion.“-David Armstrong
A street corner, the facade of a skyscraper, blossoming trees, a chair in a room on a late afternoon: These are the elusive quotidian promises of happiness that Armstrong elegantly captures, generously inviting the viewers to interweave their desires and reveries with his own intricately languid images. Underlying Armstrong’s radical aestheticism, we sense the utopian fervor of a revolt against utilitarianism, dogmatic narrow-mindedness, and the stifling fear of the senses and the body that still pervades our culture.
| 1954 | born in Arlington, Massachusetts |
| 1974 - 1978 | Boston Museum School (Diploma, 1978; 5th Year Certificate, 1980) |
| 1977 - 1978 | The Cooper Union, New York, (East Coast Exchange Program) |
| 1984 - 1988 | Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, B.F.A, |
| lives and works in New York | |
Exhibits (Selection)
| 2006 | Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston, Model Boy (solo) |
| 2004 | Your Picture on My Wall, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (solo) |
| Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists, CCAC Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco | |
| Indigestible Correctness II, Kenny Schachter Gallery, New York | |
| 2003 | David Armstrong: portraits and other works, early and recent, Galerie M + R Fricke, Dusseldorf |
| Judy Goldman Fine Art, Boston | |
| Flesh Tones: 100 Years of the Nude, Robert Mann Gallery, New York | |
| Game Over, Grimm Rosenfeld Gallery, Munich | |
| 2002 | City Light, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York |
| David Armstrong: All Day Every Day, Scalo Galerie, Zurich | |
| Visions from America: Photographs from The Whitney Museum of American Art, 1940-2001, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (catalogue) | |
| Recent Acquisitions, Dallas Museum of Art, Texas | |
| 2001 | Galerie M+R Fricke, Berlin |
| Galerie M+R Fricke, Dusseldorf | |
| Bang Street Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts | |
| CITY: Prints and Photographs from the 30’s through Today, Brooke Alexander, New York | |
| Places and People, L.A. Galerie Lothar Albrecht, Frankfurt | |
| Building Dwelling Thinking, Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art, Boston | |
| Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, 100 Drawings and Photographs, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (catalogue) | |
| 2000 | Joao Graça, Lisbon |
| Open Studio, Toronto | |
| Photography in Boston: 1955 – 1985, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts (catalogue) | |
| New Editions, Marlborough Graphics, New York | |
| Faces, Bang Street Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts | |
| 1999 | New Photographs: Matthew Marks Gallery New York, NY |
| Scalo New York, NY | |
| Galerie Fricke, Berlin | |
| Judy Goldman Fine Art, Boston | |
| Bang Street Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts | |
| 1998 | Emotions and Relations, Hamburger Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany |
| Gallerie Barbara Farber/Rob Jurka Amsterdam, The Netherlands | |
| Ugo Ferranti Rome, Italy | |
| Galerie Fricke Dusseldorf, Germany | |
| 1997 | Matthew Marks Gallery New York, NY |
| Galerie Yvon Lambert Paris, France | |
| Galerie Scalo Zurich, Switzerland | |
| 1996 | Judy Goldman Fine Art Boston, MA |
| Adicere Animos, Cesena Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery Cesena, Italy | |
| 1995 | Matthew Marks Gallery New York, NY |
| 1995 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY | |
| David Armstrong, Stephen Barker, Craigie Horsfield, Regen Projects Los Angeles, CA | |
| Boston School, The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA | |
| 1994 | From the Collection: Photography, Sculpture and Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY |
| Nan Goldin/David Armstrong: A Double Life, Museum für Gestaltung Zurich, Switzerland | |
| 1993 | L'Amèrique de Nan Goldin, Galeries Photo de la FNAC Paris, France |
| Love Again, Kunstraum Elbschloss Hamburg, Germany | |
| 1990 | The Electric Blanket, The Cooper Union New York, NY |
| Portraits, P.S. 122 New York, NY | |
| 1989 | Against Our Vanishing, Artists' Space New York, NY |
| 1984 | Traveling Fellows, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA |
| 1981 | New York, New Wave, P.S. 1 (curated by Diego Cortez) Long Island City, NY |
| 1980 | Traveling Fellows, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA |
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