Portrait of Constance Smedley, three-quarter length, with a violin

This pensive, almost Whistlerian, portrait depicts the writer Constance Smedley, who studied with Armfield at the Birmingham School of Art and later became his wife. They collaborated on a number of community, decorative and theatrical Arts projects, in London, the Cotswolds, California and New York. Music was a common passion, as was the language of flowers, which formed the basis of their publication: The Armfields' Flower Book (1922).

It is unusual for Armfield to paint in oil rather than watercolour, or the tempera which became a hallmark of his subsequent work.

We are grateful to Dr Nicola Gordon Bowe, who is working on a biography of the artist, for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.