Diana Armfield RA
Artists & Illustrators|April 2017

The Royal Academician Opens Up About Her Creative Life and Her Studio, Which Is Opposite Her Husband Bernard Dunstan’s, in Their Kew Home.

Anne-Katrin Purkiss
Diana Armfield RA

Both you and your husband are painters – do you share one studio? 

No. One day, in 1958, when I returned from taking our youngest son Bob to nursery school, I found a table arranged for me in Bernard’s studio room. Alas, there appeared only luck for one of us at a time. So Bernard erected a hut in the garden, just outside his room, but in touch through the window for signalling coffee breaks. Later, when all three boys had grown up, I took over their playroom, south facing, which suits me, even if the sunlight sometimes strikes the easel.

Your husband was elected to the RA in 1959 and you became a Royal Academician in 1989. Was there any competition? 

No, I think it has worked because we made some separations early on, so our work would not overlap. Bernard rather handed over the landscapes and still lifes to me. I perhaps would have loved to do music pictures, but Bernard was much more experienced and freer to go to rehearsals.

Do you sometimes criticise each others’ work? 

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