Thomas Armstrong

Thomas Armstrong (1832–1911) was an English artist and arts administrator.

Early life Born at Fallowfield, Manchester, on 19 October 1832, he was eldest son of Thomas Armstrong. Educated at a private school at Tarvin, near Chester, he learned drawing under Robert Crozier, of the Manchester Fine Art Academy. Deciding to adopt painting as a profession, he went to Paris in 1853, at the same period as the "Paris Gang" of George du Maurier, Edward John Poynter, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. They formed the basis for du Maurier's novel Trilby.

Artist

At first Armstrong worked in the Académie Suisse, and then in the atelier of Ary Scheffer, who was a major influence. In the summer he joined Jean-François Millet, Karl Bodmer, and Charles Jacque at Barbizon. He studied in Academie Royale, Antwerp under Theodore van Lerius (1855-6), and in 1860 he was joined by du Maurier at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where Eduard Bendemann was professor.

Later life Armstrong retired from the South Kensington Museum in 1898, and was made C.B. He took up painting again, and made a mural tablet in plaster and copper for the church at Abbots Langley, to the memory of his only child.

Armstrong died suddenly at Abbots Langley on 24 April 1911, and was buried there.

Family On 22 April 1881 Armstrong married Alicia Mary Brine, daughter of Indian Army Colonel John Jones Brine, of Shaldon, Devon.