The Blind with the Blue String
WAG 8527
Information
Maxwell Armfield (1882 - 1972) was a painter, illustrator and writer whose subjects included landscapes, portraits and still life. He worked mainly in oils, watercolour, and tempera, using bold flat colour and densely patterned surfaces that helped to create a graphic quality in his work. Armfield attended the Birmingham School of Art under the headmastership of Edward R. Taylor (1838 - 1911) who established it as a centre of the arts and craft movement. He collaborated with his wife, Constance Smedley (1876 – 1941) to combine design, illustration, and text.
Armfield left for Paris in 1902 to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere. This watercolour dates from the period just after this, which he spent in Paris, sharing a studio with the French symbolist, Gaston Lachaise (1882 – 1935) and the British artist, Keith Henderson (1883 – 1982).