David Bradley Armstrong (May 24, 1954 – October 26, 2014) was an American photographer based in New York. Armstrong first exhibited his work in 1977 and had one-person shows in New York City, Boston, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Zurich, Düsseldorf, Lisbon, Munich, and Amsterdam. His work was included in numerous group museum exhibitions including the 1995 Whitney Biennial, Emotions and Relations at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1998, and Photography in Boston: 1955–1985 at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln in 2000.

Personal life

Armstrong was born in 1954, in Arlington, Massachusetts, one of four sons of Robert and Irma Armstrong. He graduated from the Satya Community School, an alternative high school in Lincoln, Massachusetts, where he met Nan Goldin at the age of 14. David openly identified as gay. On October 26, 2014, at the age of 60, he died in Los Angeles, California due to liver cancer.

Career

Armstrong entered into the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as a painting major, but soon switched to photography after studying alongside Goldin, with whom he shared an apartment. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Cooper Union from 1974 to 1978, and he earned a B.F.A from Tufts University in 1988 and Judy Ann Goldman Fine Art in Boston. During the late 1970s, Armstrong became associated with the "Boston School" of photography, which included artists such as Nan Goldin, Mark Morrisroe and Jack Pierson. Armstrong first received critical attention for his intimate black and white portraits of men, lovers and friends, which were shown at PS1's 1981New York/New Wave exhibition, and later published prominently in the monograph "The Silver Cord." In 1996, Goldin and Elisabeth Sussman, curator of photographs at the Whitney Museum, enlisted Armstrong's help in composing Goldin's first retrospective. Sussman gained such respect for Armstrong’s eye, she acquired a few of his pieces for the Whitney permanent collection and he was subsequently featured in the Whitney 1994 biennial. Armstrong’s work has also appeared in publications such as Vogue Paris, L'Uomo Vogue, Arena Homme +, GQ, Self Service, Another Man and Japanese Vogue and he has worked on the advertising campaigns of companies such as Zegna, René Lezard, Kenneth Cole, Burberry, Puma, and Barbara Bui. He once shot editorials for Wonderland, Vogue Hommes and Purple. Although he is best known today for his portraits of boys and men, Armstrong's first solo show at Matthew Marks Gallery in 1995 was titled Landscapes. He also released a book of land and cityscapes in soft focus, entitled All Day, Every Day.

Publications

Exhibitions

Gallery shows

Institutional group shows