Harold Gilman

Southampton, Southampton Art Gallery, Camden Town Group Exhibition, 1951, cat. no. 34;
London, Reid Gallery, Paintings and Drawings by Harold Gilman 1876-1919, 3 April - 25 April 1964, cat. no. 21.

The canvas is unlined and apepars to be providing a good sound support. There are small areas of cracking in the lady's hair (centre left), around her nose and in the lower part of her chest to the right of the buttons. These appear to be lifting slightly and have resulted in a loss just below her right eye (1by 0.5cm) as well as occasional minute losses elsewhere. There is also fine cracking visible in a horizontal narrow band (c.4cm depth) running across the lower edge of the canvas. Ten old pinholes dotted along this lower edge indicate that the artist extended his composition into this extra strip of the canvas. Inspection under UV light reveals various passages of retouching - in the background upper right, at the lower edge just to the left of centre and around her left eye where a light diagonal scratch runs towards her lower ear. The painting would benefit from professional attention to stabilise the areas of cracking and give it a light clean. Presented unglazed in a painted wooden frame. The frame is structurally sound but the work would benefit from re-presentation.
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The present work appears to belong to a group of paintings of the artist's mother painted between 1917 and 1919, and of these is perhaps most closely related to an oil of almost identical size and format previously in the collection of the artist's family and a squared drawing in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. There is also a profile painting of the sitter in the same chair in the collection of Manchester City Art Galleries.