George Denholm Armour was born in Waterside, Lanarkshire on 30 January 1864. He was the son of a cotton broker. His earliest years were spent in Liverpool. He was educated at Glasgow Academy and Madras College, St Andrews. After attending St Andrews University, he moved to Edinburgh, where he studied at the Edinburgh School of Art and the Royal Scottish Academy. There, he met the animal painter and Academician Robert Alexander (1840-1923) and travelled with him to Tangiers in 1885 to paint, hunt and buy cheap horses, only returning when their money ran out. It was on a subsequent expedition to Tangiers that he met Joseph Crawhall (1861-1913), who remained a great friend, until the latter’s untimely death. Both hunting mad, upon their return to England the two friends ran a small stud at a farmhouse in Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, where Crawhall continued to influence his friend’s work. The household only broke up when Armour married, and Crawhall was his best man. Although always a fine draughtsman, it was after he met Crawhall that Armour developed the subtle, strong drawing style that may be seen in his work for Punch. He was first illustrated in The Graphic in 1890, while sharing a studio with the Graphic and Punch illustrator Phil May in London, and from 1894 concentrated largely on cartoon work. Armour travelled to New York and Long Island in June 1913, to cover the International Polo Tournament for Country Life. In 1910 he visited Austro-Hungary to study military equestrian procedures at the world-renowned Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Being a hunting blade, during the Great War, Armour served in the yeomanry, eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was appointed OBE in 1919, following his command of the remount depot at Salonika. Introduced to Punch by Phil May, Armour was a contributor for some 35 years, although never entirely abandoning his hunting and shooting, watercolours and washes. His love of the outdoors, horses, hunting, racing, shooting, stalking and his work are interwoven. When out hunting, he always carried a sketchbook and was prolific in his output. His total commitment to his horses led to his converting half his studio into a stable. It is this great enthusiasm and deep knowledge which lends so many of his animal portrayals their power and flowing movement, just as his sense of humour and keen observation of outdoor pursuits give his cartoon illustrations their appeal. Caw stated that in comparison to the works of other exponents of the pictured ‘sporting joke’, in ‘draughtsmanship and design they are incomparably finer.’ Armour also wrote the book Sport and There’s the Humour of It and his autobiography Bridle and Brush Reminiscences of an Artist Sportsman with additional illustrations by Joseph Crawhall, Maurice Greiffenhagen, Phil May and Major C A Rickards. In it Armour described his impression of a bullfight he witnessed at Algeciras in Spain ‘The whole proceedings of the bull-ring have been so often described that I shall only say the it struck me as one of the most stirring spectacles I have ever seen, despite the horror that the horse part makes one feel. Killing the bull is not open to the same charges that many blood-sports undoubtedly incur, as the bull is a fighting animal and does not know that death is at the end. He is simply fighting, which is his nature, and getting a good deal of satisfaction from it; he dies, usually quickly, by a skilfully delivered thrust from the espada. I should say it was an infinitely better end than the slaughterhouse.’ Armour contributed to Sporting & Dramatic News, Country Life, Tatler and other sporting publications. He produced many fine water-colours of huntsmen, horses and hounds, and painted equestrian portraits of society figures. Armour’s wife of 26 years died in 1924 and he re-married, to Miss Violet Burton, a cousin to Sir Richard Burton, the explorer. They lived and hunted together at Malmesbury, in the Beaufort country. Armour died in Wiltshire on 17 February 1949, at the age of 85. An exhibition of over 120 of his watercolours, gouaches and drawings was held by the Calton Gallery at the Edinburgh Festival in August 1999. His Getting a Start may be seen above.