Angela Burfoot; painter
Hyfler/Rosner
Gifted and gently eccentric painter with a flair for
flowers, still lifes and treasure found in skips
Valerie Purton
Thursday May 4, 2006
The Guardian
The artist Angela Burfoot, who has died aged 72, had a
particular flair for flowers and still lifes. Until the end
of her life she remained exotically beautiful, as if painted
by Manet or Degas; she was also that rare creature, an
unself- conscious eccentric.
Born into a secure, middle-class background in Staines,
Middlesex, she was the daughter of a bank manager. At Lady
Eleanor Holles school for girls, she alarmed her teachers by
bringing her pet mice to school under her pullover; at her
first sixth form ball, the skirt of her daring home-made
lace dress fell off; in the term she was accepted for the
Slade School of Fine Art, London, her school report tersely
commented, "Angela has not used her artistic gifts to the
full."
Between school and college, she worked in a beer bottle
factory, wearing clogs; with the money earned she bought
what she thought was an 1820 piano, which was delivered
without warning to her astonished parents. It proved to be
unplayable, but was the beginning of a lifetime of epic
bargain-hunting.
During her time at the Slade, from 1952 to 1956, Angela
studied under Sir William Coldstream and was tutored by BAR
Carter. During her final, postgraduate year, she brought her
first daughter, Miranda, to life-drawing classes in her
basket, yet still contrived to win the coveted Henry Tonks
prize. She also won the Wilson Steer prize for still life,
got to know Duncan Grant and Edward Ardizzone, and was a
Royal Academy exhibitor. By 1961 she and her husband, the
artist Ian Armour-Chelu (obituary, May 19 2000), had three
small daughters and were eking out a precarious living
illustrating book jackets and undertaking any artistic
commissions that came to hand. A move to Suffolk became a
momentous decision: in 1967, they put a poster outside their
house announcing an exhibition of their paintings. To their
astonishment, the works sold.
The annual exhibition at Rumburghplace farm became a magnet
for art lovers from Suffolk and far beyond. There were
exhibitions in Aldeburgh, Colchester, London and across the
country. While Ian developed his Suffolk watercolours,
Angela worked in oils. She had always adored wild flowers
and was particularly fond of stitchwort and herb Robert. She
rescued rare old roses, including her favourite, Stanwell
Perpetual, screeching the family car to a halt to beg
cuttings - or, indeed, anything else that took her fancy. In
the early morning, she would go round the garden impatiently
opening up the petals of recalcitrant blooms.
Skips were her passion, combining as they did the excitement
of the treasure trove with the lure of the vaguely illegal.
Her children were dispatched to climb in and search - on
occasion emerging victorious, with a 1920s powder puff, a
rag rug, a dibber or a chipped Staffordshire china sheep.
Angela would become entranced by a medieval front door and,
when discovered by the surprised householder, would persuade
him to give her a guided tour of the premises. People did
tend to give her what she asked for: she had that
inexplicable power of Shakespeare's Cleopatra, at once to
alarm and to entrance those around her: "I saw her once/ Hop
forty paces in the public street." For ancient Egypt, simply
substitute Halesworth or Bungay.
After Ian's death, Angela struggled to regain her appetite
for life. Their marriage had been a rich partnership, full
of music and literature as well as art. Their shared love of
Piero della Francesca, of Cézanne and Bonnard, but also of
Shakespeare and Bach, sustained her as she searched for ways
of going on alone. She was also blessed in the love of a
devoted family. She was fascinated by modern painting, by
the work of Euan Uglow and Claude Rogers; she travelled in
her beloved France and in the autumn before her death (after
her first experience of air travel) was painting landscapes
in Spain. But, though her work retained its vibrancy, the
sparkle of her personality never quite returned.
She and Ian made an imaginative world for their friends to
wander in; it still exists, in their paintings, their four
beautiful daughters, their 10 grandchildren and the magic of
Rumburghplace farm.
· Angela Mary Burfoot, artist, born January 21 1934; died
February 25 2006
robertc...@yahoo.com
Hyfler/Rosner wrote:
> Angela Burfoot
>
> Gifted and gently eccentric painter with a flair for
> flowers, still lifes and treasure found in skips
>
> Valerie Purton
> Thursday May 4, 2006
> The Guardian
>
>
> The artist Angela Burfoot, who has died aged 72, had a
> particular flair for flowers and still lifes. Until the end
> of her life she remained exotically beautiful, as if painted
> by Manet or Degas; she was also that rare creature, an
> unself- conscious eccentric.
Here's the only image of her work I could find on the 'net,
showing--sure enough--her "particular flair for flowers and still
lifes."
http://www.antiekdeeikelhof.nl/events/view.php?photo_id=151&screen=0&cat_id=16&action=images
Hyfler/Rosner
<robertc...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> Here's the only image of her work I could find on the
> 'net,
> showing--sure enough--her "particular flair for flowers
> and still
> lifes."
>
> http://www.antiekdeeikelhof.nl/events/view.php?photo_id=151&screen=0&cat_id=16&action=images
How lovely. Thanks for finding it.