Lavery had an immensely successful career as a fashionable portraitist (particularly of women), painting in a dashing and fluid, if rather facile, style: in his autobiography, The Life of a Painter (1940), he wrote, ‘I have felt ashamed of having spent my life trying to please sitters and make friends instead of telling the truth and making enemies.’ He also painted interiors, landscapes, and outdoor scenes such as tennis and bathing parties, and he was an Official War Artist, 1917–18. His reputation did not long survive his death, but there has recently been a revival of interest in his work.