Portrait Of A Lady (Mrs. Michael Creighton) In a Black Dress 1947 Patrick Phillips ARWS RP (1907-1976)

"Portrait Of A Lady In a Black Dress" Mrs. Michael Creighton (1947 oil on board). Painted by artist Patrick Phillips ARWS RP (1907-1976). I love this painting! Note the shell-like ashtray. I tried to discover more about this elusive English lady to no avail. I would also like to discover more about the artist other than what I can find on line. I wonder what she was thinking as she sat there smoking her cigarette (?)
PATRICK PHILLIPS ARWS RP (1907-1976)¦Portrait of Mrs Michael Creighton in a black Dress, 1947¦oil on board¦20 1/4 x 16 in (51.6 x 40.6cm
Robert Buhler described him as by far the most sensitive and accomplished painter of his generation...modest and unambitious
Trained at the Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting under Francis E Jackson, Charles Shannon and Glyn Philpot.¦1933 onwards teaching at the Byam Shaw School¦1940-45 War Service¦1946-55 Co-Principal of the Byam Shaw School.¦1954 elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.¦1968 elected to the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours.¦1977 The Chantrey Bequest purchased his portrait of Mrs Carter Gifford for the Nation.¦¦Phillips portraits are widely held in the National Collections as well as Tate. His commissioned work included leading personalities of the age - among them the Queen Mother. Regarded by his masters and his students as a draughtsman of exceptional talent, his work, based on unerring drawing, subtlety of tone and sensitive brushwork, goes further than mere technical merit and displays a profound empathy for his subjects.

Found online:
Philips was a distinguished 20th c artist. He trained at the Byan Shaw School of Art (absorbed into St.Martin's in 2003), under Francis Jackson, Charles Shannon and Glyn Philpot. Subsequently he taught there, eventually becoming its Co-Principal from 1946/55.

He was elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1959 and to the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1968. He exhibited widely including regularly at the RA., The RP, the Cooling Gallery and the New English Art Society.

He was a very successful portrait painter including one of the late Queen Mother and there are examples of his work in national collections including the Tate.