The Artist’s Mother

Gilman painted several pictures of his mother Emily, née Purcell Gulliver. These include The Old Lady 1911 (Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery),1 The Artist’s Mother at Lacon Hall c.1911 (Aberdeen Art Gallery), Interior with the Artist’s Mother 1917–18 (fig.1) and The Artist’s Mother Sleeping c.1918 (private collection),2 as well as a number of drawings (fig.2). The Tate picture shows Emily Gilman in the drawing room at Snargate Rectory. The dabbed touch and heightened palette are common to other portraits of Gilman’s mother from this period, notably The Old Lady.

In his introduction to the memorial exhibition of Gilman’s work held in 1919, Charles Ginner drew particular attention to Gilman’s pictures of his mother, and specifically to the Tate painting:

That Gilman should choose his mother as a subject is not surprising, as he invariably painted those around him, and notably those who played some part in his emotional life. But it is interesting to think of Gilman’s picture in relation to Whistler’s famous Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, Portrait of the Artist’s Mother 1871 (fig.3). Acquired by the French Government in 1891 – and delivered to Paris by Whistler’s pupil Walter Sickert – it is highly likely that Gilman was aware of this picture, and would have been able to see it in the Musée du Luxembourg on his visits to Paris. Such was the picture’s stature, and Gilman’s acknowledged early interest in Whistlerian harmony and smoothness, that it must be suspected that he was engaged in some form of mental comparison with this iconic image of Aestheticism. Gilman’s bright impressionist palette and crusty surface would have horrified Whistler, and it is as if Gilman is bidding goodbye to the subtle harmonies and glossy surfaces of his earlier pictures.