Diana Armfield

The Royal Academician tells ANDREW LAMBIRTH about the joys of the Welsh landscape, her “special time” to paint, and why she’s still learning new lessons at the age of 101

- ANDREW LAMBIRTH

Born in 1920, Diana Armfield was a late starter as a painter. Although she attended three art schools (Bournemouth, The Slade, and the Central School of Art and Design), she studied to be a designer, not a painter. She duly set up a successful design practice, in 1947, with Roy Passano, designing and printing textiles, both by block and screen, and designing wallpapers. In the 1950s, she also found work as a teacher, first at the Central in the textile department, and later at Byam Shaw School of Art teaching drawing – landscape, mostly. But it was not until 1965, when she was asked to teach painting, that she herself began to paint – at the age of 45. Before that, remarkable as this seems, she had never even experimented with oils.

Diana is clear about the differences between the two disciplines: “To design textiles or wallpaper is to make a background, whereas I hope my work [as a painter] will attract attention and then hold it. So, the object is different, which means the solutions are different. But you still have to pose the same questions. They’re very close in the way of needing artistry and dexterity.”