PARALLEL LIVES

Imagine a painter whose work rivals the physical impact of Easter Island’s Stone Monoliths, while sharing artistic DNA with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

You end up with Alexander Van Armstrong and almost no one else.

This School of London expressionist is best known for his giant portrait heads of 20th century icons like Winston Churchill, Mick Jagger, Joe Louis, Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, and mythological figures like Agamemmnon.

These incendiary works are characterized by powerful paint handling, tempered by sophisticated use of chiaroscuro and sfumato. They have nothing in common with Warhol’s “Pop”portraits of celebrities, nor Chuck Close’s cautious photo realism.

Alexander Van Armstrong is an exact contemporary of Damien Hirst. Each helped to put London’s famous East End art colony on the map.

Both have a history with Charles Saatchi.

Whereas Hirst would embrace the advertising mogul’s patronage, Van Armstrong rejected Saatchi’s offer to buy the contents of his last London show.

The artist already had a circle of wealthy patrons privately funding his work, and was not eager to be associated with Saatchi’s Young British Artists.

Arriving in New York in the early 2000s, Van Armstrong hit the ground running. Music mogul, Chris Blackwell gave him the use of a magnificent studio overlooking The Hudson. Film director Spike Lee was one of many celebrity visitors.

Spike Lee commissioned a giant portrait head of JOE LOUIS for his 2004 movie, SHE HATE ME, kickstarting an ongoing 20 year artistic collaboration. The film director would also commission giant portrait heads of Jack Johnson and Muhammad Ali.

At 24 feet wide and 8 feet tall, The King Of Pain is one of the most extreme painting’s of our time. This is the painting that the artist declined to sell to Charles Saatchi.

The King of Pain reprises Francis Bacon’s adoption of the triptych format as a formal device, while preserving much of the poignancy of Bacon’s portraiture, but here on an astonishing scale - 100 times life size.

JOE LOUIS 2 wowed visitors to The Brooklyn Museum’s recent exhibition of Spike Lee’s art collection. The Guardian singled it out as one of the highlights of the exhibition.

What a lot of people don’t know is that Joe Louis 2 is merely the tip of the iceberg.

The artist has produced upwards of 30 such portraits.

We believe that an expertly curated selection of some of these giant portrait heads would wow a broad cross section of America’s art museum visitors.

Here we have magnificent all out painting coupled to fascinating historical content. This work is not about celebrity. These are portraits of exceptional figures, some of whom impacted 20th century American History.

If the powers will it, this would make for a great traveling show, perhaps starting 2026.