Harold Gilman
1876–1919
License this image
License this image
In Tate Britain
In Tate Britain
Walk Through British Art: 1900
Free entryBiography
Harold Gilman was one of the main instigators in the formation of the Camden Town Group (figs.1 and 2). As the art critic Frank Rutter later recalled, Gilman was ‘an incorruptible puritan, who would have no half-measures, no bargaining, but stood solid for root-and-branch reform’ and so ‘consistently advocated the formation of a new society’.1 Despite dying at the age of forty-three in 1919, his strong-minded and ardent personality, as revealingly displayed in Walter Sickert’s portrait of c.1912 (Tate T00164, fig.3), meant that he made a lasting impact on the British art world at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Harold John Wilde Gilman was born on 11 February 1876 at Rode in Somerset. He was the second of seven children of the curate of Rode, John Gilman (1840–1917), and Emily Purcell Gulliver (1850–1940). In 1890 Gilman began boarding at Tonbridge School, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent, after his father secured the living of the villages of Snargate with Snave in Romney Marsh, near the south-east coast (fig.4). It was at Tonbridge School that Gilman badly injured his hip in 1891, leaving him incapacitated for nearly three years, during which time he discovered his love of art.2
After attending Oxford University for just a year in 1894–5, Gilman left either owing to ill-health or because he decided to tutor the children of an English family in Odessa, where he stayed for about a year.3 In 1896 he enrolled at Hastings School of Art in Sussex, and from 1897 to 1901 he attended the Slade School of Fine Art. His contemporaries there were Spencer Gore, Albert Rutherston, Wyndham Lewis, Augustus John and William Orpen, and he was taught by Frederick Brown, Philip Wilson Steer and Henry Tonks.
Early style and inspiration
Post-impressionist influence
The Camden Town Group and ‘Neo-Realism’
Memorials
Notes
Artworks
Harold Gilman Leeds Market
c.1913
Harold Gilman The Artist’s Mother
c.1913
Harold Gilman Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table
1916–17
Harold Gilman Nude at a Window
c.1912
Harold Gilman Edwardian Interior
c.1907
Harold Gilman Lady on a Sofa
c.1910
Harold Gilman Madeleine Knox
c.1910–1
Harold Gilman Canal Bridge, Flekkefjord
c.1913
Artist as subject
Walter Richard Sickert Harold Gilman
c.1912
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed 8 Fitzroy Street
[1915–16]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Anna Hope Hudson Letter from Walter Sickert to Nan Hudson, addressed 6 Mornington Crescent, London
[1907]
Paul Nash, recipient: Margaret Nash Private view card and letter from Paul Nash to Margaret Odeh
4 November 1913
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Nan Hudson
[c.1914]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Incomplete letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands
date not known
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Anna Hope Hudson Letter from Walter Sickert to Nan Hudson
[c.March 1914]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands
[March–April 1914]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipients: Ethel Sands, Anna Hope Hudson Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands and Nan Hudson
[c.1914]
Film and audio
>
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.
Re-Viewing the Camden Town Group – Part 1
Audio recording of the Tate Britain, Modern Painters symposium dedicated to the Camden Town Group and the Moderen Painters exhibition.
>
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.
Michael Palin in Conversation with Tim Marlow
Actor, writer and traveller Michael Palin and art historian Tim Marlow discuss their continuing fascination with the Camden Town Group ...
>
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.
Metropolis and Modernity: Modern Painters Study Day
To coincide with Modern Painters: The Camden Town Group, this study day examines the Camden Town Group in the context ...
Features
Art Term
Camden Town Group
The Camden Town Group were a British post-impressionist group founded by Walter Sickert in London in 1911
Project
The Camden Town Group: Paintings and Drawings in the Tate Collection
The research and creation of an unique online catalogue about the Camden Town Group that will present essays about the ...
Tate Etc
Dealing joyously with gross material facts: The Camden Town Group
Modern Painters: Sickert's famous dictum heralded a move towards a gritty realism in British painting
Tate Etc
Tate Etc. issue 12: Spring 2008
TATE ETC Issue 12 Spring 2008: Visiting and revisiting Art, etcetera, online edition of Tate's magazine
You might like
Walter Richard Sickert
1860–1942
Henry Tonks
1862–1937
Vanessa Bell
1879–1961
Ethel Sands
1873–1962
Sir William Orpen
1878–1931
Malcolm Drummond
1880–1945
Duncan Grant
1885–1978
Flora Lion
1878–1958
David Bomberg
1890–1957
Ambrose McEvoy
1877–1927
Spencer Gore
1878–1914
Gwen John
1876–1939
George Spencer Watson
1869–1934
Sir Walter Russell
1867–1949
Wyndham Lewis
1882–1957