David Armfield, Morris's Vineyard

Biography:

Born in Melbourne in 1923 David Armfield studied at the National Gallery Art School from 1940 to 1941, at which point he departed Australia to serve in World War Two. Upon his return in 1946, he undertook some freelance illustration work for various newspapers, in addition to working for the Argus and the Herald as a Press Artist, and two years later, undertaking studies in printmaking at RMIT.

Armfield was also painting part time during this period, under the tutelage of Sir William Dargie, an Australian portrait artist who won the Archibald Prize for Portraiture on eight separate occasions.  Armfield entered one of the paintings he had been working on in Dargie’s class, in the Hugh Ramsay Prize for Portraiture and was duly awarded the winner for his ‘Woman in a Green Dress’.[1]

In later years, and as a result of Armfield’s travels to Europe, his practice expanded to include landscapes, etchings, genre paintings and commissioned works.

Armfield is represented in public collections across Australia and private collections in England, France, America, Italy and Australia.

Bibliography:
Begg, Sue, The Serene Paintings of David Armfield, School of Fine Art, Phillip Institute of Technology, 1988

The Quarterly Bulletin of the National Gallery of Victoria, Vol.3, No3, 1949

The artwork

The subject artwork is one of the earliest acquisitions by the University for the Collection.

[1] The Quarterly Bulletin of the National Gallery of Victoria, Vol.3, No3, 1949, p.7