Maxwell Ashby Armfield was an English artist, illustrator and writer
Education
Born to a Quaker family in Ringwood, Hampshire, Armfield was educated at Sidcot School and at Leighton Park School. There he studied under Henry Payne and Arthur Gaskin and, outside the school, received instruction in tempera painting from Joseph Southall at Southall"s studio in Edgbaston.
Career
In 1887 he was admitted to Birmingham School of Art, then under the headmastership of Edward R. Taylor and established as a major centre of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He was later to recall:
He exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1904, where his painting Faustine was bought by the French State and donated to the Musée du Luxembourg, and is now in the Musée d"Orsay, Paris. In 1911, they both appear on the census of that year as resident in Minchinhampton (Gloucestershire).
The couple became close collaborators: working together to combine design, illustration, text and theatre.
Armfield"s wife also influenced him to become a pacifist and Christian Scientist. From 1915 the couple spent seven years in the United States.
In 1946 Armfield released the book "Tempera Painting Today", published by Pentagon Press Limited.
A detail from Armfield"s painting Self-Portrait (1901. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), was used as the cover illustration of the Oxford World"s Classics 2006 edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Armfield has paintings in the collection of several British institutions including Derby Art Gallery, Southampton and Nottingham Gallery and the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery.