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Harold John Wilde Gilman (11 February 187612 February 1919) was a British painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group.
Although he developed an interest in art during a childhood convalescence period, Gilman did not begin his artistic training until after his year at Oxford University (cut short by ill health) and after working in Ukraine as a tutor to a British family in Odesa (1895). In 1896 he entered the Hastings School of Art to study painting, but in 1897 transferred to the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where he remained from 1897 to 1901, and where he met Spencer Gore. In 1902 he went to Spain and spent over a year studying Spanish masters. Velázquez and Francisco Goya as well as Whistler were major early influences.
Harold Gilman was married, for the second time, to (Dorothy) Sylvia Hardy (formerly Meyer),Arts Council 1981, p.38England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916–2005; Dorothy S Hardy, Registration Date: Apr/May/Jun 1918, Registration district: Hampstead, County: London Spouse: Harold J W Gilman, Volume :1a, Page Number: 1456 an artist he had met at Westminster and who had studied with him since 1914. She had their child in December 1917 and they married on 20 April 1918, on learning that Gilman's divorce had been finalised. After Gilman's death, in 1921 Sylvia married Leofric Gilman, his brother.
Gilman visited Scandinavia in 1912 and 1913, and may have travelled with the artist William Ratcliffe, whose relations lived there. Gilman made studies of the environment, and painted Canal Bridge, Flekkefjord, an accurate depiction, whose subject is likely to have been inspired by Van Gogh's depiction of a similar bridge in Provence. " Canal Bridge, Flekkefjord circa 1913", Tate Etc.. Retrieved 15 September 2008. Gilman had rejected Van Gogh's work when he first encountered it, but later became a strong admirer. According to Wyndham Lewis, he kept postcards of Van Gogh's work on his wall and sometimes hung one of his own works next to them, if he was especially satisfied with it.
In 1914 he joined Robert Bevan's short-lived Cumberland Market Group, with Charles Ginner and (later) John Nash. In 1915 the group held their only exhibition.
He taught at the Westminster School of Art, where he influenced students such as Mary Godwin, Ruth Doggett, and Marjorie Sherlock. "Pupils and followers" in The Camden Town Group, p. 68, at thefineartsociety.com He then started his own school with Ginner.
In 1918 he was commissioned to travel to Nova Scotia by the Canadian War Records; and painted a picture of Halifax Harbour for the War Memorial at Ottawa.
He died in London on 12 February 1919, of the Spanish flu.
Legacy
Exhibitions were devoted to him at the Tate in 1954 and 1981, and he also featured in its 2007–2008 Camden Town Group retrospective at Tate Britain. David Bowie purchased Gilman's A London Interior for his private art collection; the piece was sold at auction after Bowie died in 2016.
See also
Gallery
, c. 1913]], c. 1915]]
Notes and references
Bibliography
External links
Categories: 1876 Births, 1919 Deaths, Deaths From The Spanish Flu Pandemic In England, 19th-century English Painters, English Male Painters, 20th-century English Painters, People From Mendip District, People Educated At Abingdon School, Alumni Of The Slade School Of Fine Art, Alumni Of Brasenose College, Oxford, 20th-century English Male Artists, 19th-century English Male Artists
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