“Draw if you can, the mystical line,
severing rightly, this from thine,
which is human, which divine.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

John Samuel Armstrong III was born February 18, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland. He had an early interest in art and was encouraged to pursue his talent from a young age. In his formative years, he attended both public and private schools. Drafted on his 18th birthday, he spent three years in the Army Air Force during the World War II era. He feels that his path in life and work have been constantly guided by the Lord Almighty.

He attended and graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) where his first wife, Blair Morton Armstong, was also a student. He would go on to marry Blair – forming a beautiful family and raising four children together over the next 50 years. Blair was an exceptional artist in her own right and inspired many of Armstrong’s greatest works.

Always a naturalist, Armstrong often found inspiration in nature. He would watch patterns form in the seafoam of a breaking wave, and would sit in awe of the simple line formed by a meandering river. Eventually, these observations evolved into a unique style of art that he would later call Monolinearism.

His first job whereby he could use his burgeoning artistic talents was in creating isometric drawings for Army manuals for Bendix Aircraft in Towson, Maryland.

In 1951, Armstrong moved to Scottsdale, Arizona and started an advertising and art studio. He created drawings for Paradise Pharmacy as well as a series of character line portraits of actors that performed at the Sombrero Playhouse in Phoenix, Arizona. He also drew illustrations for the Scottsdale Arizonian newspaper and the Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review.

In one of the early highlights of his career, Armstrong drew portraits of Adlai Stevenson II and Dwight D. Eisenhower for the 1952 presidential campaign. Eisenhower went on to win the U.S. presidential election in a landslide.

In 1960, Armstrong created the first rendition of the “Lady in the Labyrinth,” a painting that would become an enduring theme and would forever influence his work.

Around this time, Armstrong also created oil paintings that he called Vistascapes – meditations that display a panorama of colors which allow the viewer complete freedom of interpretation. These oil paintings tap into the viewer’s natural intuition and lead the mind to wander and to meditate upon the wonders that they conceive. In many ways, the paintings evoke a reaction that is the complete opposite of the rational mind and logical existence of modern life.

Armstrong’s art continued to evolve. His portraits went from several lines to the single, unending line as evidenced in his original drawing of Eisenhower in 1952 to the casting of the Eisenhower bronze piece in 1969. Highlights included bronze sculptures of Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, extraordinary bronze gates, as well as the Bright Angel bronze sculpture that now hangs in the Episcopal Bishops Residence in Phoenix, Arizona.

It was in 1969, Armstrong then in his early forties, when he received the distinction of a lifetime – a commission to create a memorial bronze portrait of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It became the highlight of his career and is mounted permanently in the Chapel of the Presidents in Washington D.C.

Another fascinating aspect of Armstrong’s career was his decades-long commitment to researching his grandfather’s role in the formation of the Arizona Normal School in 1885. Armstrong was finally formally recognized for his work in 1997 by receiving the Distinguished Achievement Award for his monumental efforts in researching the founding of what later became known as Arizona State University (ASU). He received a commission from the university to create a bronze sculpture of his grandfather for the dedication of the Armstrong Law Building at Arizona State University in 1968.

Today, at 100 years young, Armstrong resides in La Jolla, California, where he spends his days embraced by the sea and surrounded by his loving family.