Bartlett, Henry Francis (1916 - 2014) - Armoured Cars Near Cambridge, December 1943

Henry Bartlett started painting whilst at St Paul's, later attending the Ruskin School of Drawing whilst studying at Oxford. He then spent four years in Paris studying art, where he was married in 1940. He went on to serve as a diplomat, with his last post being as British Ambassador to Paraguay, before retiring to Australia in 1976; the painting features an Australian gallery label on the reverse. 
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But why exactly was he painting armoured cars? Well, his war record - much like the service history of the Guy armoured car - remains somewhat limited. From December 1942 he worked within the Ministry of Information as Assistant to the Director of the British Overseas Press Service. He then moved to Algiers, helping the French Committee for National Liberation with propaganda production.  Post-war, he was sent to Gdansk in September 1950, where he was soon involved in a John le Carré-esque abduction of the French Vice-Consul by Polish intelligence.
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Despite his involvement with the Ministry of Information and his artistic talents, Bartlett was never commissioned as a war artist. Yet, he continued to paint throughout his career, exhibiting in Paris in 1947 whilst serving as British Vice-Consul, and similarly selling off artworks when he left Gdansk in late 1950. The most likely explanation is that he probably painted it for his own interest whilst back in England in late 1943.