In the Nursery at Snargate Rectory by Harold Gilman (1876-1919)

In the Nursery at Snargate Rectory.

Harold Gilman (1876-1919).

Signed l.r.: H.Gilman.

Oil on canvas, 54 by 44 cm.

Provenance: The Estate of the Artist, from whom acquired by Lord and Lady Walston in 1955; Their sale, Christie's London, 6th June 2003, lot 14

Exhibited: Colchester, The Minories, Harold Gilman, 1876-1919, An English Post-Impressionist, 1st - 29th March 1969, cat. no.10, illustrated, with tour to The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield (as Interior); Stoke on Trent, City Museum and Art Gallery, Harold Gilman 1876-1919, 10th October - 14th November 1981, cat. no.8, illustrated p.44, with Arts Council tour to York City Art Gallery, York; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, and Royal Academy of Arts, London (as Interior);
London, Christie's, The Painters of Camden Town, 1905-1920, 4th - 24th January 1988, cat. no.28 (as Interior).

Literature: Maureen Connett, Walter Sickert and the Camden Town Group, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1992, p.45, illustrated (as Interior (showing Grace and the Children)).

The rectory at Snargate on Romney marsh in Kent was the home of Gilman's father who was rector of the parish there until his death in 1917. Several important early interior scenes were executed by Gilman there including the present work, Edwardian Interior (Tate Britain) and Interior (Southampton Art Gallery). The scene depicts the artist's first wife Grace with her back turned to us as she stokes the fire. To the front of the composition is the maid, Sarah, reading a book with Gilman's younger daughter Hannah (b.1905). Richard Thomson (in his introduction to the 1981 Arts Council exhibition on Gilman) has suggested a poignant interpretation of this painting. In the composition, Grace faces away from Gilman, a possible hint to her increasing remoteness from her husband. In 1909 Grace would travel to America with their children never to return, finally diviorcing Gilman in 1917, two years before his untimely death in the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1919.

Price on application

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance