Maeve Gilmore (1917-1983)
06 Nov - 13 Dec 2014
MAEVE GILMORE (1917-1983)
Paintings
6 November ~ 13 December 2014
ANCiENT & MoDERN presents paintings by the British artist and writer Maeve gilmore (1917-1983), which will also mark the occasion of Ancient & Modern’s 50th exhibition.
Maeve gilmore’s paintings range from her assured early portraits to the later, more exploratory and occasionally tentative, narrative scenarios, with the figure still a key element.
Initially reflecting a Euston Road School influence, from the 1950s the work began to align with aspects of British surrealism, espoused particularly in the still life depicted as landscape. As her husband’s health declined her previously secular imagery gave way to a more spiritually-inspired gesture and economy of means. This presentation, her first solo exhibition in London for decades, brings together a group of paintings from the mid 1940s to the early 1970s, focusing in particular on her portraiture.
Brought up in Brixton, south London, educated in Sussex and Switzerland, gilmore studied at Westminster School of Art where she met her future husband, Mervyn Peake (author of the ‘gormenghast’ trilogy of novels), in the 1930s. After his death gilmore wrote “A World Away” (1970), a biographical account of their life together in London, West Sussex, Kent and on the island of Sark.
Paintings
6 November ~ 13 December 2014
ANCiENT & MoDERN presents paintings by the British artist and writer Maeve gilmore (1917-1983), which will also mark the occasion of Ancient & Modern’s 50th exhibition.
Maeve gilmore’s paintings range from her assured early portraits to the later, more exploratory and occasionally tentative, narrative scenarios, with the figure still a key element.
Initially reflecting a Euston Road School influence, from the 1950s the work began to align with aspects of British surrealism, espoused particularly in the still life depicted as landscape. As her husband’s health declined her previously secular imagery gave way to a more spiritually-inspired gesture and economy of means. This presentation, her first solo exhibition in London for decades, brings together a group of paintings from the mid 1940s to the early 1970s, focusing in particular on her portraiture.
Brought up in Brixton, south London, educated in Sussex and Switzerland, gilmore studied at Westminster School of Art where she met her future husband, Mervyn Peake (author of the ‘gormenghast’ trilogy of novels), in the 1930s. After his death gilmore wrote “A World Away” (1970), a biographical account of their life together in London, West Sussex, Kent and on the island of Sark.