- Also known as
-
Maxwell Armfield
-
primary name: Armfield, Maxwell Ashby
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; designer; author/poet; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1881-1972
- Biography
- Painter, stage-designer and author. Born to a Quaker family in Ringwood, Hampshire; educated at the Friends' School, Sidcot and Leighton Park School, near Reading. Attended Birmingham School of Art, 1887, studying under Henry Payne (q.v.) and Arthur Gaskin. Moved to Paris in 1902 to study at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and exhibited at the Paris Salon, 1904. On his return to London exhibited at the Rowley Galleries, 1906, and in 1907 at the Fine Art Society, sharing a show with members of the Birmingham Group, his tutors Payne and Gaskin and Joseph Southall (q.v.).The same year he had a solo exhibition at the New English Art Club. After marrying the author Constance Smedley he settled in the Cotswolds where they founded the Cotswold Players and the Greenleaf theatre in London. His interest in the theatre continued during a seven year period in the USA - 1915-22. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy, New English Art Club, the Leicester Galleries and abroad. He illustrated nearly twenty books and was author of: 'A Manual of Tempera Painting', 'Tempera Painting Today', 'An Artist in America' and 'An Artist in Italy'. Latterly lived in Bath, Somerset. Exhibitions were held at the Fine Art Society: 'Homage to Maxwell Armitage', 1970 and a 90th birthday exhibition, 1971. His work is held in the Government Art Collection, National Portrait Gallery, Derby Art Gallery, Russell- Cotes Gallery, Southampton and Leicester Galleries as well as in the British Museum.
- Bibliography
- Peyton Skipwith: 'Armfield, Maxwell Ashby 1881-1972', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
'Homage to Maxwell Armfield', exhibition catalogue, Fine Art Society, London 1971
