Margaret Armfield, the Artist's Mother

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. This lightly sketched portrait of Margaret Armfield was drawn when Armfield was 20 years old and probably still a student at Birmingham School of Art. He left for Paris the following year to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere.