© the artist's estate. All Rights Reserved 2010 / Bridgeman Art Library
Armstrong was an official war artist between 1940 and 1943 and after the war became an active campaigner against nuclear weapons.
The scene of Pro Patria is one of muted horror. Something terrible has occurred - a massacre or a violent death amid ruins that had once been a refuge. The religious and political references are equally potent and fused into a single expression of anguish. Pro Patria is a work of European significance in the history of artistic and literary responses to the Spanish Civil War which occupied a special place in the hearts of British people who fought on both sides,