Stuart Armfield (1916-1999)

Painter, notably in tempera, horn in Sanderstead, Surrey. He studied at West of England College of Art, Bristol, and was from 1935-40 on the art staff of Ealing Studios. Films worked on included Gracie Fields' Sing As We Go, 1934 and George formby's I See Ice, 1938. During a short contract at a Paris film studio, from his cousin Maxwell Armfield he learned the tempera technique. Wrote the manual Tempera Painting. Showed at RA, with St Ives Society of Artists of which he was a member, Arthur Jeffress Gallery, RWS and in America. Lived in Looe, Cornwall, later in Plymouth, Devon. After World War II, Armfield produced Symbolist pictures which featured black models, chessboards and keys, sought by collectors such as King Hassan of Morocco, the exiled Prince Chula of Thailand and the actor Lric Portman. Ironically for a Quaker pacifist, who was a conscientious objector in World War II, Armfield's sole work in a British public co