Interior with the Artist's Mother

Harold Gilman 1876 - 1919

Summary

A portrait of the artist's mother Emily Purcell, wife of the Rev. John Gilman, vicar of Snargate with Snave on the Romney Marsh, Kent, seen from the left hand side, as she is seated in a large wicker chair in her sitting room. She is leaning back reading a book, and behind her can be seen various paintings on the walls, and a chest of drawers with vases and bowls placed on top of it. The dark blue of her long dress and blue-toned background dominate the colour scheme of the painting, but are alleviated by the bright patterns of the carpet, the cushions of her chair, and the chest of drawers. Harold Gilman was in the Camden Town Group of painters. They were influenced by developments in French art and Vincent van Gogh was Gilman's particular hero. The thick paintwork here is similar to van Gogh's style, but the purple tones are distinctively Camden Town.

Display Label

Gallery text panel Tradition and Experiment Early Twentieth-Century Art 1900 - 1939. In Britain, the beginning of the 20th century coincided with the end of the Victorian age. Artists and designers experimented, challenging traditional ways of seeing and making; now trying to create a new art for a modern era. In painting, it was often traditional subject matter such as portraits, landscapes and interiors that would be tackled in new ways. The bustle and the brutality of urban life was an inspiration or something to escape from. Boundaries became increasingly blurred between design and decoration, painting and making and individual expression replaced academic authority. Art was made to be affordable and at a scale that would fit into ordinary homes. Some called the celebration of the modern into question after the horrors of the First World War. Traditional imagery was simplified or became childlike and slowly broke down into fragmented visions. Dream and chance tapped into subconscious anxieties and in 1939, world war intervened once again.