Henry Lamb was an English painter, born in Australia. His work was displayed at the Second Post-Impressionist exhibition in London, 1912 and he was a founder-member of the Camden Town Group and the London Group; his early work was influenced by Gauguin. Lamb trained at the Chelsea School of Art which had been founded by Augustus John and William Orpen. Lamb moved amongst the Bloomsbury circle, which included the artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell. He was friends with Lytton Strachey and is probably best known for his portrait of the critic and biographer (1914, Tate). He was appointed as a war artist after the Armistice; prior to that he had completed a medical training and served with the 5th Enniskillen Fusiliers, before being invalided home. He produced a large war painting: Irish Troops in the Judaean Hills Surprised by A Turkish Bombardment, 1919 (Imperial War Museum). He was again appointed official war artist in the Second World War, and between 1940 and ’42 he produced many drawings and paintings of servicemen. This small genre scene of two men chatting, with one holding a child on a bicycle, is thinly painted in the muted colours typical of Lamb's work.