Maeve Gilmore
1917-1983
Self-Portrait with Charcoal, c 1958, oil on canvas. © Maeve Gilmore Estate.
Photo courtesy of Studio Voltaire (Francis Ware). National Portrait Gallery Collection
Whilst Gilmore’s early work reflects a Euston Road School influence, also evident is a brand of romanticism reminiscent of the Neo-Romantics, such as Piper and Ayrton. Between 1935 and 1937 (the year of her marriage to writer and artist Mervyn Peake), Gilmore travelled and studied in mainland Europe, where she saw first-hand key works of modernism and the avant-garde. She was greatly inspired by the 1937 Paris Exhibition, where she saw Calder’s Mercury Fountain, Miro’s Catalan Peasant in Revolt and Picasso’s Guernica. Subsequently, she began to take on the influence of European surrealism and abstraction in paintings in which the figure remained her central concern. Much of her work is autobiographical, depicting the domesticity of family life and events from a keenly feminine perspective in imagery that is often surreal and dreamlike.
As her husband’s health declined, Gilmore’s secular imagery gave way to a more spiritually-inspired gesture and economy of means. After his death in 1968, she found renewed artistic expression, and this was arguably when she produced much of her best work. At the same time, she worked to preserve Peake’s legacy, and his status today is partly attributable to Gilmore’s efforts.
Viewed from both feminist and art historical perspectives, one can position Gilmore’s work in a context that might also include such notable artists as Leonora Carrington, Eileen Agar, Ithell Colquhoun, and Vanessa Bell. Her story is, in part, a familiar one; that of a woman artist struggling to forge her own artistic career whilst often finding her reputation subsumed or overshadowed by that of a male artist. There are highly distinctive qualities in Gilmore’s work, both stylistically and thematically, which make her worthy of reassessment as an important British artist of her period.
Biography
1917 Born in Brixton, South London
1924-1929 The Sisters of St Andrews Catholic School, Streatham, London
1929-1934 St Leonards Convent Boarding School, Sussex
1934-1935 Villa Beata, The Holy Sisters Finishing School, Fribourg, Switzerland
1935-1936 Tour of Spain
1936-1937 Westminster School of Art, London
1937 Bonn Art School, Germany
1937 European Tour and visit to the Paris Exhibition
1937 Marriage to Mervyn Peake
1946 -1949 Family moved to Sark, Channel Islands
1952 Family moved to the Grange, Smarden, Kent
1953-1960 Family moved to Wallington, London
1960-1983 Family moved to Drayton Gardens, Chelsea and South Kensington, London
1983 Died in Chelsea and South Kensington, London
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
1939 Wertheim Gallery, Mayfair, London, curated by Lucy Wertheim
1954, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1974 Woodstock Gallery, Mayfair, London
1969-1979 Several solos shows, Langton Street Gallery, Chelsea, London
2014 Ancient & Modern Gallery, Hackney, London
2022 Maeve Gilmore, Studio Voltaire, London
Group exhibitions
1945 Redfern Gallery, Mayfair, London, with Jean-George Simon and Constantin Guys
1954 London Group: Artists of Fame and Promise, Leicester Galleries, Mayfair, London
1964 Women’s International Art Club, Portmeirion, Wales
1975 Maeve Gilmore and Mervyn Peake, St Catherine's College, Oxford, London
2017 Brace Brace, 29 Percy Street, Fitzrovia, London
2022 Ode to Orlando, curated by Marcelle Joseph, Pi Artworks, Fitzrovia, London
2023 Redfern Gallery, Mayfair, London
2024 Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK
2024 Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham
2024 Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, UK
2025 Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, Dundee Contemporary Arts, UK
Publications
1970 A World Away: A Memoir of Mervyn Peake (Penguin, Vintage)
1974 Mervyn Peake: Writings & Drawings (London: Academy Editions)
1978 Peake’s Progress (London: Allen Lane)
1981 Captain Eustace and the Magic Room (Methuen Publishing)
Collections
National Portrait Gallery
Tate
The Women's Art Collection, University of Cambridge
UCLH Foundation Trust Art Collection