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Diana Armfield (born 1920)
The Grand Canal from the Academia, Venice
Signed with initials
Oil on canvasboard
10 x 10 inches

Exhibited: Browse and Darby, London, December 1979, no.25

Provenance: Private collection, bought from the above exhibition
 
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A most attractive, vibrant snapshot of the Grand Canal captured by one of the foremost female British artists.

Diana Armfield studied at the Slade School and Central School of Arts and Crafts. She is known not only as a painter but also for her early textile and wallpaper designs which are included in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Landscape is a major subject in her work, as well as still lives and interiors. She invariably works within a small format never exceeding 50 x 60 cm. Between June 2002 and May 2002, Diana Armfield was interviewed, and these records now form part of the aural archive at the British Library.

Commenting on her work, Diana Armfield has said:

'If I'm landscape painting, I may be looking for the subject in those places which appear at first unruly- wild country, sea or sky, tumbling rocks. All are subject to the big ordering forces of the weather, growth or seasonal change.... Or I look at those parts where man has modified the landscape; vineyards, olive groves, quarries, townscapes.'

Since 1965 Diana Armfield has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, New English Art Club, Albany Gallery (Cardiff), amongst other venues at home and abroad, and solo shows at Browse and Darby (London), since 1979. She has work in the Royal West of England Academy's Permanent Collection, H.R.H Prince of Wales Collection, and the Royal Academy and Royal Watercolour Society Diploma Collections.

She has held membership of the Royal Academy since 1989, and Royal Watercolour Society, Honorary Membership of the NEAC and Pastel Society, and Honorable Right Membership of the Royal Cambrian Society. Twice she reached the finals of the Hunting Prize in the 1980's and won Agnew's NEAC Prize in the early 1990's.

She was married to Bernard Dunstan PPRWA RA.

Source: The Royal West of England Academy website

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