Maxwell Armfield - 'Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart'

['Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart'
inscribed 'Where the silence is more/than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart A.C. Swinburne.- hymn to Proserpine...' (lower centre, in the margin) and dated 'O2' and further inscribed with a pentagon within a circle and shield]
pencil and watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour and with gum arabic on paper
11 1/8 x 4¼ in.

Armfield's paintings are all highly idiosyncratic. He was given every encouragement in his artistic training by his father, who funded his studies at the Birmingham School of Art, where he fell under the influence of Arthur Gaskin and Henry Payne. Following Joseph Southall's experiments in the use of tempera, Armfield also produced works in that medium. Armfield was not only a painter but a prolific illustrator who was also deeply involved in theatre, music teaching, and journalism. He had a deep religious sense and was passionately interested in the formal and philosophical basis for art.

The model is Irene Lewis, neé Smedley Aston.