Rolf Armstrong

One of the most depressing things about the history of art over the past century or so has been the rejection of the idea of art as being about the cult of beauty.

So-called high art has become increasingly hostile to the idea of beauty. It is almost as if beauty disqualifies a picture from being real art.

As high art has retreated from the concept of beauty a gap has been left. The desire for visual beauty remains, and the gap has been increasingly filled by the kind of art that will never be regarded as acceptable by the highly politicised mandarins of the art establishment - by pin-up art, movies, glamour photography, girlie magazines, calendar art, commercial art in various manifestations.

One of the great masters of pin-up art of the 20th century was Rolf Armstrong (1889-1960).