Sarah Colegrave

GEORGE DENHOLM ARMOUR OBE (1864-1949)
Going to the Post (1912 United Kingdom)

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GEORGE DENHOLM ARMOUR OBE (1864-1949)

Pencil and black and white chalks

Signed with initials, inscribed USA and dated 1912

G D Armour, Bridle and Brush, Reminiscence of an Artist Sportsman, London & New York 1937, illus. p. 236.

Armour was born in Lanarkshire and studied at St Andrews University, Edinburgh School of Art and the Royal Scottish Academy Schools. He was a close friend of Joseph Crawhall and visited Tangiers with him in the 1880s. In the 1890s he settled in London and became a regular contributor of illustrations for Punch, the Tatler and The Graphic as well as illustrating many sporting books. During the First Wold War he commanded the depot of the Army remount service and from 1917 to 1919 served with the Salonica Force. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Scottish Academy and elsewhere and later lived in Wiltshire.

Armour visited America in 1912-13. He was sent there by Country Life magazine to cover the International Polo Matches and to hold an exhibition of his pictures in a New York gallery, which in the end did not happen. During this time he went to a race meeting at Belmont where he was particularly struck by the unusual American racing seat. He recorded it in this study which he reproduced in an illustration in his memoirs with the following comments: “The so-called modern racing seat was to be seen in its most exaggerated form, the jockeys’ knees generally being quite above the level of the horses’ backs, and their hands within about a foot of the horses’ mouths. … The jockey’s racing kit was, to my eye, curious. Cap and jacket differed little from what we are accustomed to, but when it came to breeches, these did not, according to our idea, fit at all, looking something like long, loose drawers with a few buttons along the outside, evidently for decoration only, as they had nothing to do with the fit of the garments. They were met by racing-boots, much wrinkled, and only coming less than half way to the knee.” (G D Armour, Bridle and Brush, Reminiscence of an Artist Sportsman, London & New York 1937p.226-230.)