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Maxwell Armfield (1881-1972):
Datura in Bronze
Framed (ref: 7792)
Signed with monograph, titled on a label to the reverse
Flemish tempera
13 x 10 1/2 in (33 x 26.7 cm)
See all works by Maxwell Armfield tempera The Alan M. Fortunoff Collection
Provenance: The Fine Art Society, November 1989; Fortunoff Collection
Armfield recalled that 'Apart from invaluable benefit from guidance and advice from such masters as Henry Payne, Arthur Gaskin and Joseph Southall, I really taught myself, as must any one who hopes to do individual work... I detested the Life Class, and rarely attended it: I refused to learn perspective or anatomy as they bored me, and generally, I could not have been a worse student.'
His paintings, not least his still-lives, are always resonant with symbolism.
Arfield was at the forefront of the Tempera revival in Britain and In 1946 published 'Tempera Painting Today', (Pentagon Press LTD).