A lyrical eye
A new book by Andrew Lambirth has been created to celebrate Royal Academician Diana Armfield’s 100th birthday, bringing her fascinating artistic life story up to date. As this abridged extract shows, it also richly represents Diana’s feeling for landscape and place
Together with her husband, Bernard Dunstan RA and previous longtime consultant editor of The Artist (who died in 2017), these two leading figurative artists interwove their personal and creative lives during a marriage of over 70 years.
‘I think I was born making things’, Diana comments to Andrew Lambirth, whose interview with her forms the narrative throughout the book. Initially she studied at Bournemouth, Slade and Central art schools, starting out as a talented textile designer. She turned to painting in the 1960s and from 1966 has been a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
Andrew Lambirth interviewed Diana at her studio near Kew in December 2019, and the question-and-answer format ensures that Diana’s own voice is uppermost throughout the book. The following is an example of their conversational exchange, providing us with intimate insights into her working practice.
AL: What drives you to paint?
Obsession, isn’t it? And now it’s a solace; above all, it’s a love, admiration or interest in the subject.
AL: Have you ever wanted to paint an abstract?
Well, I’ve done that in my designs. I think abstraction should be a lead to the figurative. One should be thinking of the abstract all the time. Rhythms and forces, colours, shapes, tones and edges, echoes, directions – that’s what I take ‘abstract’ to be.
AL: You say that you’ve slowed up a bit now. How long do you spend on a painting, on average?
They’re all so different! If it’s a sunset, it might take an hour, and it’s either a success or not. Then there are the flower pictures, which can go on week after week, the big ambitious ones. Otherwise, I suppose, on average I do perhaps 12 paintings a year. But then there are drawings…
Of course in our prime, say in the 1980s, Bernard and I in Venice used to do the morning view, picnic, the afternoon view, go back to the hotel for a bath and everything, then out into the piazza before supper, to do a bit of drawing or something. Three things in a day. Couldn’t now! But it was marvellous to absolutely soak oneself in working, as long as it’s punctuated by a picnic and a good meal in the evening. They were all honeymoons really, in Venice.
AL: Was Sickert important to you?
I think so. I found him gloomy, but the touch is very beguiling. And the drawings. He’s the one who can do the lovely patch of paint and then draw with the brush to indicate the windows and so on. They’re miracles.
Bernard didn’t mind about the lowkey [of Sickert’s colour] whereas I love a high key. Of course Bernard was taught in a very traditional way in art. Example: silence in the room and just a little
drawing by the tutor in the top right-hand corner [of your sheet] which you were supposed to be influenced by and to learn from. I couldn’t! I couldn’t see any connection with what I was trying to do. Then Bernard, quite consciously, would admire for a time, say, Stanley Spencer or William Roberts. He would say ‘I’m going to try and do a painting in the manner of’. I could neither do it, nor want to do it.
AL: What about pastels – do you use pastels in the open air?
No. It’s a studio thing. Done from drawings entirely – or pretty well. As a medium it lends itself to Venice, and figures.
AL: You’ve talked about the importance of painting what you see, rather than what you already know.
That’s where something crawls in at the back saying ‘but…’, because although people when they first come to art school do draw what’s in their minds rather than what they can see, and you have to help them to put down what they see, the fact is, if you have knowledge as well, you can see more. So there’s that side of it. What you see is unique to you, and that’s what one’s after.
AL: How close are the two disciplines: design of fabrics and wallpaper, and painting?
Design is absolutely necessary in painting. The two aims are different, because to design textiles or wallpaper is to make a background, whereas I hope my work 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. There’s a lot more to learn with designing: you have to fit in with the demands of the machinery. The wallpaper must be 21 inches wide, and you’ve got to learn all about repeats, and technical things such as managing the half-drop. There are many more technical considerations that have to be incorporated, but it’s still full of artistry.