Gilman, Harold

Gilman, Harold (1876–1919). British painter of interiors, portraits, and landscapes, born at Rode, Somerset, the son of a country parson. He became interested in art during a long convalescence after an accident and he had his main training at the Slade School, 1897–1901; his fellow student Spencer Gore became a close friend. In 1907 Gilman met Sickert and became one of the leading figures in his circle; he was a founder member of the Camden Town Group in 1911 and of the London Group (of which he was first president) in 1913. However, with his friend Ginner he fell out with Sickert in 1914 (see NEO-REALISM). Gilman travelled fairly extensively (Odessa, 1895; Spain, 1902–3; America, 1905; Paris, 1911; Sweden, 1912; Norway, 1913), but he spent most of his career in or near London. After Gore's death in 1914 he took over his teaching at Westminster Art School, and in 1915–17 he ran his own art school with Ginner. His early work was rather sombre, but under the influence of Sickert he adopted a higher colour register and a technique of using a mosaic of opaque touches. From Sickert also he derived his taste for working-class subjects. After Roger Fry's first Post-Impressionist exhibition (1910) and a visit to Paris (1911) he used very thick paint and bright (sometimes garish) colour. He was one of the most gifted British painters of his generation and one of the most distinctive in his reaction to Post-Impressionism, but his career was cut short by the influenza epidemic of 1919.